ABU FALAH, Palestinian Territories: When Israeli settlers attacked their West Bank village of Abu Falah, Milia Hamayel told her son not to try to fight them off, but the 30-year-old went to defend a friend´s land anyway.
“I called him two or three more times and he didn´t answer. After that -- may God have mercy on him -- that was it,” she told AFP, her lips trembling as she looked at a framed picture of her son, Thaer.
A little while later Thaer was dead, shot and killed alongside another man from the village, Palestinian authorities said. A third Palestinian man died from suffocation after the Israeli army fired tear gas, they said.
While the world´s attention is focused on the US-Israeli war with Iran, the Israeli-occupied West Bank has experienced a surge in deadly settler violence.
Since the start of the month, six Palestinians have been shot dead in settler attacks, according to a tally of data from the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Israeli human rights group B´Tselem said the increase in bloodshed “indicates the intensification of Israel´s ethnic cleansing efforts under cover of the war with Iran”.
That sentiment was shared by Palestinians on the ground.
“It seems that when the Iran war began, the settlers saw it as a golden opportunity,” Ibrahim Hamayel, a resident of Abu Falah who tried to push back the settlers, told AFP.
Hamayel, who is not related to the man who died, said that the attacks had multiplied since Israel launched its campaign against the Islamic republic on February 28.
The figures appeared to back him up.
In the 28 months between the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023 and the start of the war with Iran last month, 24 Palestinians were killed by settlers, according to OCHA.
In addition to roughly three million Palestinians, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements and outposts in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
