Illegal Israeli settlers attack Palestinian Bedouin community in eastern West Bank

By Anadolu staff

RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) - Illegal Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian Bedouin community northwest of Jericho city in the eastern occupied West Bank on Friday, said an organization.

Speaking to Anadolu, Hasan Mleihat, head of the non-governmental Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, said residents of the Arab Al-Malihat Bedouin community in the Al-Mu'arrajat area fended off the settlers’ attack, forcing them to retreat.

Mleihat said that the area has faced repeated assaults by settlers, including acts of intimidation, aimed at driving Palestinians out of their communities.

According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, attacks by Israeli forces and settlers in the region led to the displacement of five Bedouin communities—comprising 18 families and 118 individuals—during the first half of the year.

Since October last year, a total of 24 Palestinian Bedouin communities, consisting of 266 families (1,517 people), have been forcibly displaced from their areas, according to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission.

Tension has been running high in the West Bank due to Israel’s brutal war on the Gaza Strip, which has killed nearly 44,900 people, mostly women and children, following a Hamas attack in October 2023.

At least 812 Palestinians have since been killed and over 6,450 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.

In July, the International Court of Justice issued a landmark advisory opinion that 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.

*Writing by Ahmed Asmar