Politics
Settlers kill four Palestinians as Israeli officials promise revenge
On 24 July, a vicious settler attack took place in the village of Tal, southwest of Nablus, West Bank. Four Palestinians from the Ramadan family were fatally shot by Israeli occupation forces (IOF).
The village mayor reported that more than 70 residents had been arrested in retaliation. Eyewitnesses at the scene told the Canary that a group of Jewish settlers, armed to the teeth, infiltrated the village before descending on a Palestinian home. The homeowner, struggling to protect his home, rallied the local community. It was too late. The settlers had fanned out, accompanied by IOF soldiers providing legal cover.
Four Palestinians killed in settler attack
Two brothers, Farouq and Ibrahim, and their cousins Jawad and Imran were killed in the latest settler attack. Four other members of the Ramadan family sustained injuries.
One of the surviving brothers, Ihab Ramadan, told Middle East Eye that the IOF and settlers opened fire on the family.
Chaos broke out.
Farouq took a settler’s weapon and shot into the air. He then redirected the gun towards an occupation soldier to make him back off. Instead, the soldier shot at Farouq’s cousin, who was standing behind him. Farouq then opened fire.
On the same day a member of the IOF was killed, alongside Beniyahu Meltz, described by defence minister Israel Katz as “a reserve fighter” embedded within a settler-staffed “rapid response team” in the Havat Gilad settlement.
Video footage shows Meltz and another armed settler pressing a Palestinian man with a gun and kicking him. The man then grabs the shoulder strap of the settler’s rifle as the settler stumbles to the ground.
IOF infiltrates hospital in Nablus
Meltz is no hero. He was an illegal coloniser and acted with criminal intent. As is the norm for settlers, Meltz terrorised Palestinians, dislodged them from their homes, and stole their land. That’s the textbook definition of ethnic cleansing. The illegal settlement of Havat Gilad he hailed from transposed the native Palestinian villages of Far’ata, Tal, and Jit, near Nablus — stolen land to be precise. According to human rights group B’Tselem, settlers from Havat Gilad have a long, well-documented record of harassing and violently abusing local Palestinians.
Settlers are now calling for “revenge,” and have escalated their terror campaign against Palestinians, as these incidents worryingly become a daily occurrence in the West Bank.
After the attack in Tal, 30 to 40 occupation soldiers stormed the Nablus Specialised Hospital.
They entered the emergency department and assaulted medical staff, making them all lie face down.
They examined the hospital’s CCTV footage, then confiscated it. The IOF searched the hospital for a Palestinian who was injured during the Israeli assault on Tal. They arrested him and his brother, who was not present during the events.
Ben-Gvir makes unveiled threats
At just gone 8am that morning, illegal settler and national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, took to X. He issued the following threat:
“The cities and villages of the murderers in Judea and Samaria are to be treated like Beit Hanun in Gaza … For every Jew who is murdered – the enemy must absorb the loss of lands and homes. This is the language spoken in the Middle East, and as we spoke it in Gaza – it is time to speak it in Judea and Samaria as well. “
Similarly, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich claimed the villages of Tal, Iraq Burin, and Beit Furik would look “exactly like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarm.” The occupation demolished these camps and forcibly displaced their residents during Operation Iron Wall in 2025.
Netanyahu and Katz announced the IOF was to launch a “wide-scale military operation” across the West Bank in retaliation.
All leave for the IOF has been suspended. Troop deployments across the occupied West Bank have been reinforced, with the deployment of five extra military battalions. In a statement, Netanyahu also said the Ramadan family home would be demolished, and work permits would be revoked. He also vowed to expedite the construction of more illegal settler outposts and to suspend existing legislation prohibiting settlement expansion.
It’s also worth noting that since 7 October, Ben-Gvir has granted thousands of firearm permits to illegal settlers in West Bank settlements and Jerusalem. Palestinians are forbidden by both the occupation and the Palestinian Authority (PA) from carrying weapons.
Calls for revenge as settler violence surges
After the attack in Tal, hundreds of settlers began terrorising the nearby village of Sarra. They torched several homes and assaulted residents.
The village of Far’ata was also under attack by settlers, who caused extensive property. Five Palestinians sustained serious injuries, incluing a civilian shot in the head.
In recent months, the occupied West Bank has witnessed a sharp increase in settler violence, and home incursions. More checkpoints blocking entry and exit to Palestinian villages have appeared. Arrests have continued, as have settler attacks.
In the village of Tal, dozens of residents have been rounded up and subjected to field interrogations. The Palestinian Prisoners Society described this as an “ongoing policy of collective punishment.”
Settlers call for “blood”
The settlers are calling for blood and won’t rest until they exact revenge. Retributive attacks included an assault on two mosques which settlers set on fire. In another, a settler stabbed a Palestinian in the back, after his vehicle broke down on the al-Ma’rajat road near Jericho.
Illegal settlers also set fire to 10 excavators, bulldozers, and trucks belonging to the Ein Samia quarry, located between al Mughayyir and Kafr Malik. The word “revenge” was also graffitied in Hebrew at the site. The cost of the damage caused is estimated at USD 500,000.
ALARM!!
Violent attacks reported in all West Bank particularly northern area and Nablus! Packs of settlers – terrorists in full force backed by Israeli soldiers -are calling for "blood", literally.
STATES MUST DEPLOY A PROTECTIVE PRESENCE pic.twitter.com/OtEEsXDGZu
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) July 24, 2026
Settlers can get away with anything. That includes murder. They are fully protected and supported by the IOF, and funded by the occupation.
The world remains silent.
Less than a week before the fatal shootings in Tal, settlers set a house on fire in the village, and the blaze spread throughout the area. There is no hope of the situation improving for Palestinians until these criminals are held accountable.
POGROMS Israeli civilians and army joining forces.
It is not just Nethanyahu and few "rotten apples".
THIS IS ISRAEL
ARMS EMBARGO NOW – STOP TRADE NOW This is what intl law requires. pic.twitter.com/6IHR4yPolS
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) July 25, 2026
against defenseless civilians
all over the West Bank (while Gaza is under fire).
Double standards
Violence against Palestinians is spiralling out of control. According to the Colonisation & Wall Resistance Commission (CWRC), so far in 2026, terrorist Jewish colonisers have murdered 24 Palestinians, compared to 14 in 2025, and 12 in 2024. The total number of attacks carried out by the Israeli occupying state between 1 January and 30 June 2026, was 11,074. Settlers have perpetrated 3,488 of these attacks.
Noone is protecting Palestinians. They have to protect themselves. “Israeli” settlers continually intimidate and provoke Palestinians, while under the protection and support of the occupation’s soldiers.
The terrorist Israeli regime expects Palestinians to run away from any violence directed at them. If these unarmed civilians stand their ground, to protect their families, their homes and their land, they are blamed for the violence. They will then either be attacked, detained or shot, and the whole town or village likely to be subjected to the war crime of collective punishment.
Featured image via the Canary
By Charlie Jaay
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