Palestinians injured after Israeli settlers launch 'arson' attacks on farmland in West Bank

The incidents were reported in the village of Bedouin, in the occupied West Bank of Palestine, and are the latest in a recent surge in settler violence coinciding with the olive harvest season.

It comes after the UN's humanitarian office said the number of violent attacks by settlers last month was the highest since it began collecting figures nearly 20 years ago.

Israel has built around 160 settlements housing 700,000 Jewish people since it occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with an estimated 3.3 million Palestinians living alongside them.

The settlements are illegal under international law.

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Palestinian Authority Minister Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, said the attacks were part of a campaign to impose "a hostile environment through intimidation and terror."

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that troops went to the scene "to disperse the confrontation using riot dispersal means and apprehended several Israeli civilians" but added that soldiers were then attacked by settlers gathering nearby.

Four suspects were reportedly arrested by Israeli police.

In a post on X, the country's president Isaac Herzog called the latest events "shocking and serious", blaming "a handful of violent and dangerous individuals."

He said: "Such violence against civilians and against IDF soldiers crosses a red line and I condemn it severely."

The head of the IDF Central Command, Major-General Avi Bluth, said: "The reality in which anarchist fringe youth act violently against innocent civilians and against security forces is unacceptable and is extremely serious. It must be dealt with firmly.

"The directive to IDF soldiers is clear: do not stand idly by and do everything in your power to prevent any act of nationalist crime."

The UN's Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that settler violence during the olive harvest has reached the highest level recorded in recent years, with about 150 attacks documented so far, resulting in the injury of more than 140 Palestinians.

The UN's Emergency Relief Co-ordinator, Tom Fletcher, recently wrote on X: "The failure to prevent or punish such attacks is inconsistent with international law.

"Palestinians must be protected. Impunity cannot prevail. Perpetrators must be held accountable."

On Tuesday, hundreds of mourners attended the funeral of 13-year-old Aysam Mualla in Beita, near Nablus.

He was reported to have been in a coma since inhaling tear gas fired by the IDF as villagers were picking their olives last month, near the settler outpost of Evyatar.