Israeli illegal settlers carried out assaults Friday against Palestinian farmers in the Al-Aghwar area, also known as the Jordan Valley, in the northern occupied West Bank.
Moataz Bisharat, who is responsible for monitoring Israeli settlement-building activity, told Anadolu that settlers, protected by Israeli forces, attacked the farmers in the Umm al-Quba Plain in the northern Al-Aghwar area and forced them to leave their lands.
He noted that the army intervened in favor of the settlers and declared the area a “closed military zone.”
The activist said that the settlers, in a separate incident, set up a tent on a hill east of a Palestinian community living in the Al-Farsiya Khallet Khader area, as a prelude to establishing a settlement outpost.
He said another group of illegal settlers destroyed the olive trees of Palestinian villagers in the Bardala village in the northern Al-Aghwar area.
The Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said in early January that settlers in 2024 committed 2,971 violations across the occupied West Bank against Palestinians and their properties that left 10 Palestinians dead and more than 14,000 olive trees damaged.
According to data from the Israeli anti-settlement group, Peace Now, there are more than half a million illegal settlers in 146 settlements and 224 outposts in the West Bank.
In recent years, the Israeli military has conducted regular raids in the West Bank, which have escalated with the beginning of the onslaught on the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Palestinians have also been violently attacked by illegal Israeli settlers.
At least 847 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 6,700 injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.