Israeli settler assaults in West Bank 'constitute criminal aggression': Hamas

Hamas has condemned latest assaults by Israeli settlers and the relentless army offensive across the occupied West Bank, as “systematic terrorist practices” run by the occupying regime.

In a statement released on Friday, the Palestinian resistance movement said that assaults on Palestinian property, the intimidation of civilians, and the firing of live ammunition at them “constitute criminal aggression.”

Hamas said the regime of “war criminal” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is systematically implementing a policy of ethnic cleansing against our Palestinian people, by unleashing heavily armed settlers, under the protection of the occupation army, to wreak havoc in the cities, villages and refugee camps of the occupied West Bank.”

The statement comes as settler violence and military offensive intensified across the occupied territories on Friday, leaving dozens of Palestinians injured, expanding arrests and raids, and forcing families in the northern Jordan Valley to dismantle their homes.

A large-scale assault targeted the village of Talfit, south of Nablus, where settlers opened live fire at residents, wounding a young man in the thigh and causing additional injuries and bruises, according to reports.

The Palestinian media reported that the total number of injured later rose to 54 after Israeli forces intervened alongside the settlers. A number of Palestinians were detained during the incident.

Eyewitnesses said Israeli occupation soldiers provided protection for the attackers while firing live ammunition, stun grenades, and tear gas toward homes, causing widespread suffocation cases.

Journalists were also targeted. Israeli occupation forces fired gas canisters and bullets directly at media crew covering the events.

The violence spread to nearby Qusra, where armed Israeli settlers stormed the Ras al-Ain area — the site of a new settlement outpost — and attacked residents under military protection.

Also across several parts of the central West Bank, Israeli occupation forces carried out a series of incursions and movement restrictions.

Elsewhere in the Friday statement, Hamas called on the international community, the United Nations, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to take “deterrent” measures against the “Judaization, displacement and annexation projects led by the fascist occupation regime.”

West Bank settler violence surges after Gaza ceasefire: Report

The UN logged more than 260 attacks resulting in Palestinian casualties or damage to property in the West Bank in October alone.

The resistance movement also urged Palestinians across the occupied territories to confront these “dangerous” policies and to activate all forms of “resistance” to thwart them.

The Israeli regime and its settlers have markedly scaled up their brutal attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 2023, when the regime began a war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

Israel recently approved new rules aimed at strengthening Israeli control over the occupied West Bank, drawing condemnation from Palestinian authorities and resistance groups.

The Palestinian Authority, in a statement on Sunday, called the decision “dangerous” and an “open Israeli attempt to legalize settlement expansion” and land confiscation.

President Mahmoud Abbas’s office called on the United States and the United Nations Security Council to intervene immediately.

Israeli minister says Netanyahu's new measures 'de facto sovereignty' over West Bank

Energy minister says the new steps “establish a fact on the ground that there will not be a Palestinian state."

The rules will make it easier for Israeli settlers to buy land in the occupied West Bank and give Israeli authorities stronger powers to enforce laws on Palestinians in the area

The West Bank is among the areas that Palestinians seek for a future independent state, along with Gaza and occupied East al-Quds. Much of the West Bank is now under direct Israeli military control, with extremely limited Palestinian self-rule in some areas, governed by the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian resistance groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, have also denounced the expansionist policy, holding the United States and countries that have normalized relations with Israel responsible for enabling or failing to prevent the consequences of such decisions.

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