Israeli settlers set fire to Palestinian homes in northern West Bank

Israeli settlers set fire to several Palestinian homes on Thursday evening after storming the outskirts of Bruqin town, west of Salfit province in the northern occupied West Bank.

According to WAFA, the official Palestinian news agency, a group of settlers attacked the area, setting fire to a number of homes. The fires caused extensive damage and led to large-scale blazes across parts of the town. Footage circulating on social media showed flames spreading in several locations in Bruqin.

The arson attack took place just hours after Israeli forces re-entered the town on Thursday evening, following a brief withdrawal earlier in the day. WAFA reported that the army returned in large numbers with military vehicles, blocked several internal roads, and raided multiple houses, launching thorough searches.

Earlier on Thursday, Israeli troops had withdrawn from Bruqin and the nearby town of Kafr ad-Dik after a nine-day military operation. The campaign included the killing of a Palestinian man, widespread arrests, and the conversion of several homes into military outposts, under the pretext of searching for the person behind a shooting incident that killed an Israeli woman and injured her husband.

Meanwhile, the Israeli army and settlers have stepped up attacks across the West Bank, including in East Jerusalem, in parallel with the ongoing genocidal war in Gaza. According to Palestinian figures, at least 969 Palestinians have been killed, around 7,000 injured, and over 17,000 detained in the West Bank since the beginning of the escalation.

Since 7 October 2023, Israel, with full support from the United States, has been carrying out what Palestinians describe as a genocide in Gaza. The war has left more than 175,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, the majority of them women and children, in addition to more than 11,000 missing and hundreds of thousands displaced.

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