The News
Dozens of Israeli settlers set fire to houses and cars in a village in the occupied West Bank, leaving at least one person dead on Thursday night. The masked settlers stormed the village of Jit, opening fire and lobbing tear gas at residents, Palestinian authorities said.
A White House spokesperson said the attacks — which come amid ongoing ceasefire talks over the war in Gaza — were “unacceptable and must stop.” The EU’s foreign policy chief said he will propose sanctions on the settler’s’ supporters in response to the attack, including some in government.
SIGNALS
Israel seeks to cement control of West Bank
Israeli incursions into the West Bank have surged since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct 7, part of a strategy by ultranationalist Israeli lawmakers to prevent the possibility of East Jerusalem one day becoming the capital of an independent Palestinian state, The Wall Street Journal reported. Israel has built settlements and roads and turned a blind eye to illegal construction by settlers, dividing up the Palestinian territory even while officially maintaining that its control of the West Bank is temporary. “The goal is to change the DNA of the system for many, many years,” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said of his plans in the West Bank.
Violence bolsters ranks of Palestinian militants
Israeli military raids and air strikes on the West Bank have left hundreds of Palestinians dead, fueling frustration and anger. Israel has said the increased military presence is necessary to prevent attacks on Israeli citizens, but the violence has driven recruitment among Palestinian militant groups and united rival factions, The Washington Post reported. Many of the Israeli attacks have targeted Palestinian refugee camps, the NGO ACAPS reported, which have long been strongholds for militant groups. “If they wanted to end the local resistance, they should leave us alone,” an inhabitant of Nur Shams refugee camp told +972 Magazine, a progressive Israeli publication.
Authorities in the West Bank are collapsing
The Palestinian Authority, the official governing body of the West Bank, is “closer to collapsing than it has been since the height of the second intifada in 2002–3,” two experts from the Israel Policy Forum argued in Foreign Affairs. They wrote that Israel’s efforts to limit funding, as well as internal infighting, corruption, and the authoritarian instincts of President Mahmoud Abbas have all hamstrung the organization. The PA’s legitimacy in the West Bank and Gaza has plummeted, with 94% of Palestinians in the West Bank in favor of Abbas’s resignation, according to a poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research earlier this summer.