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Israel settlers landed palestinian Olive harvesters and workers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank this week were beaten with batons in an attack that sent at least one woman to hospital with serious injuries, Palestinian health officials said.
The attack in the town of Turmus Ayya on Sunday, which was captured on video obtained by The Associated Press, came as Palestinians say settler violence in the area is worsening. united nations And rights groups have raised concerns as the harvest season begins and Palestinian farmers face increasing risks while gathering olives.
“The scale and frequency of settler violence has increased,” Ajit Sunghay, head of the U.N. human rights office in the Palestinian Territory, said in a statement released Tuesday. “Two weeks after the start of the 2025 harvest, we have already seen serious attacks by armed settlers against Palestinian men, women, children and foreign solidarity workers.”
In one of the videos obtained by the AP, a masked man was seen running through an olive grove and beating at least two people, including a woman, with a stick as she lay unconscious on the ground. The masked man appeared to be wearing tzitzit, a ceremonial fringed garment worn by Jews.
The Ramallah-based Palestinian Health Ministry said the woman was hospitalized with serious injuries.
In a separate video, more than a dozen masked men were seen chasing a car down a village road along an olive grove. A resident put the car together and opened the door. One passenger managed to escape with a group of people running behind him.
In the third video, flames and smoke are seen rising from several burnt cars.
Israel’s Channel 12 reported that the head of the West Bank police force said in an internal police WhatsApp group that footage of the woman being beaten by the masked resident “kept him up at night” and instructed officers to bring the resident to justice.
Israel’s military and police did not respond to AP’s request for comment on the attack.
Turmus Ayya, whose population is predominantly Palestinian American, has long been the target of settler attacks, but villagers say the violence grew worse during the Israel-Hamas war. It sits in a valley surrounded by mountain peaks dotted with Israeli settlements and outposts. Since the killing of Amer Rabie, a 14-year-old Palestinian-American, by Israeli forces in the city in April, protests against settler violence and the military’s alleged failure to stop it have provoked regular clashes with settlers.
More broadly, settler violence is on the rise in the West Bank. The UN says 757 settler attacks have resulted in casualties or property damage in the first half of 2025 – a 13% increase compared to the same period last year.
More than 150 settlers have been attacked in the first week of the olive harvest season and more than 700 olive trees have been uprooted, broken or poisoned, according to Muayyad Shaaban, the head of the Palestinian Authority office that monitors the violence.
Israel captured East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip as well as the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East War. Palestinians want those areas as independent states in the future. Settler advocates hold key Israeli cabinet positions that give them and the settlers a significant amount of authority over the West Bank.
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Melzer reported from Tel Aviv.