West Bank Settler Rampages Follow Deadly Nablus Clashes
Israeli settlers rampaged through villages across the occupied West Bank on Friday and into Saturday, according to reports, hours after four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in a gun battle near Nablus that prompted a wide Israeli operation. Some 86 Palestinians have been killed across the territory this year as violence surges alongside the wider regional war.
The bloodshed opens a further front in a region already convulsed by the war with Iran and the strain on the fragile Gaza ceasefire, where at least 73,311 Palestinians have been killed overall, more than 1,100 of them since the October truce nominally took hold. Egypt is working with the United States and regional partners to accelerate the deployment of an international stabilisation force intended to shore up the ceasefire and support a technocratic administration for the enclave. Palestinian officials have condemned the settler reprisals as collective punishment. Watch for further raids and the pace of the stabilisation effort.