Israeli settlers torch Palestinian village in West Bank

Footage has emerged on social media purportedly showing houses and vehicles set ablaze in Jit late on Thursday.

Plumes of smoke are seen rising above the village.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said in a statement that “those responsible for any criminal act will be caught and prosecuted”.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog wrote in a post on X: “This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding community of settlers and the settlement as a whole and in the name and status of Israel in the world during a particularly sensitive and difficult period.

“Law enforcement officials must act immediately” to bring those responsible to justice, Mr Herzog added.

In a statement, the IDF said its forces were deployed in the village “within minutes” of receiving reports of violence, shooting in the air to disperse the crowds. Attackers were then removed from Jit.

The IDF added that an investigation was launched by the IDF, Israel’s security agency Shin Bet and the Israeli police following the “serious incident”.

Palestinians regularly accuse Israeli security forces of allowing groups of violent settlers to attack their villages.

According to OCHA – the UN office for Humanitarian Affairs – there have been more than 1,000 attacks by settlers against Palestinians since October,, external with at least 1,390 people – including 660 children – displaced.

Lethal violence has frequently accompanied the attacks. OCHA recorded 107 that led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries, 859 causing damage to Palestinian property.

International attention has been focused on the ongoing Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip – but the scale of settler violence has prompted the US, the EU and the UK to impose sanctions on some settler leaders and, for the first time, against entire settler outposts.