Dozens of Israeli settlers assault West Bank village

Dozens of Israeli settlers surged into a Palestinian village in the West Bank yesterday, burning cars and killing at least one person, Israeli authorities admitted yesterday.

The Palestinian health ministry said one 23-year-old man was killed and another suffered a critical gunshot wound in the chest when Israeli settlers opened fire in the village of Jit, the latest in a series of attacks by violent settlers in the West Bank.

Shocking footage circulated on social media showed houses and cars smouldering after being set alight by Molotov cocktails thrown by the Israeli settlers. 

The fatal attacks came hours after an Israeli airstrike in the West Bank killed two other young Palestinians. 

More than 600 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed since October 7, most of whom died as a result of incursions by Israeli settlers.  

The White House, whose diplomats are now engaged in a fresh round of ceasefire talks with international mediators, declared Israeli settlers’ attacks in the West Bank ‘unacceptable’ and insisted they ‘must stop.’

‘Israeli authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening to stop such violence, and holding all perpetrators of such violence to account,’ a White House spokesperson added.

The Israeli military said police and army units intervened and arrested one Israeli. It condemned the incident, which it said diverted security forces from other responsibilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office issued a statement saying he viewed the incident with ‘utmost severity’.

‘Those responsible for any offence will be apprehended and tried,’ it said.

But Palestinians regularly accuse Israeli security forces of standing by and allowing groups of violent settlers to attack their houses and villages.

The United States and a number of European countries have imposed sanctions on violent settlers and called repeatedly on Israel to do more to curb the attacks.

The violence in the West Bank comes as international mediators kicked off a new round of talks aimed at halting the Israel-Hamas war and securing the release of scores of hostages – all while heading off the prospect of an even larger regional conflict.

The United States, Qatar and Egypt met with an Israeli delegation in Qatar as the Palestinian death toll from the more than 10-month-old war climbed past 40,000, according to Gaza health authorities. 

Hamas, which didn’t participate directly in Thursday’s talks, accuses Israel of adding new demands to a previous proposal that had US and international support and to which Hamas had agreed in principle.

A cease-fire in Gaza would likely calm tensions across the region. 

Diplomats hope it would persuade Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah to hold off on retaliating for the killing of a top Hezbollah commander in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut and of Hamas’ top political leader in an explosion in Tehran.

White House National Security spokesperson John Kirby said that Iran has made preparations and could attack soon with little to no warning – and that its rhetoric should be taken seriously.

The mediators have spent months trying to hammer out a three-phase plan in which Hamas would release scores of hostages captured in the October 7 attack that triggered the war in exchange for a lasting cease-fire, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza and the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

A US official briefed on Thursday’s talks in Doha called the discussion ‘constructive.’ The official, who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said mediators will continue their talks Friday.

Both sides have agreed in principle to the plan, which President Joe Biden announced on May 31. 

But Hamas has proposed amendments and Israel has suggested clarifications, leading each side to accuse the other of making new demands it can’t accept.

Hamas has rejected Israel’s latest demands, which include a lasting military presence along the border with Egypt and a line bisecting Gaza where it would search Palestinians returning to their homes to root out militants. 

Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan said the group is only interested in discussing the implementation of Biden’s proposal and not in further negotiations over its content.

A Palestinian official who closely follows the negotiations said Hamas wouldn’t take part in Thursday’s talks, but that its senior officials, who reside in Qatar, were ready to discuss any proposals from the mediators, as they have in past rounds.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denies that Israel has made new demands, but he has also repeatedly raised questions over whether the cease-fire would last, saying Israel remains committed to ‘total victory’ against Hamas and the release of all the hostages.

The most intractable dispute has been over the transition from the first phase of the cease-fire – when women, children and other vulnerable hostages would be released – and the second, when captive Israeli soldiers would be freed and a permanent cease-fire would take hold.

Hamas is concerned that Israel will resume the war after the first batch of hostages is released. 

Israel worries that Hamas will drag out the talks on releasing the remaining hostages indefinitely. 

Hamdan provided documents showing Hamas had agreed to a US bridging proposal under which talks on the transition would begin by the 16th day of the first phase and conclude by the fifth week.

More recently, Hamas has objected to what it says are new Israeli demands to maintain a presence along the Gaza-Egypt border and a road dividing northern and southern Gaza.

Israel denies these are new demands, saying it needs a presence along the border to prevent weapons smuggling and that it must search Palestinians returning to northern Gaza to ensure they aren’t armed.

On Thursday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that the broader framework of the deal laid out by Biden in May has generally been accepted and that the negotiation was a process, which was expected to continue.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed across the heavily guarded border on October 7 in an attack that shocked Israel’s vaunted security and intelligence services. 

The fighters rampaged through farming communities and army bases, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted an additional 250 people. 

More than 100 were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November, and around 110 are believed to still be inside Gaza – though Israeli authorities believe around a third of them have died in captivity.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed 40,005 Palestinians, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Thursday, without saying how many were militants. 

The offensive has reduced much of the territory to rubble and has driven the vast majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million people from their homes, often multiple times.

‘Oh Lord, we hope they reach an agreement and the war ends, because the population has been annihilated completely,’ Abu Nidal Eweini told AP reporters in the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah. 

‘People have no breath left in them anymore. People are tired.’