Palestinian man killed as Israeli settlers burn homes and cars in West Bank village

Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing a man and burning homes and cars, local authorities said.

The Israelis, many of them masked, allegedly stormed the village of Jit near Qalqilya city in what was only the latest of a series of attacks by violent settlers in the occupied region.

The Israelis went on a rampage and shot at the Palestinian villagers, killing a man in his early 20s and critically injuring another, reports said.

A video from Jit showed a raging fire engulfing houses at night, another shot from a distance showed a column of smoke rising in the area.

The Israelis are accused of routinely attacking Palestinians in the West Bank, destroying and stealing their homes and farmlands.

The White House said late on Thursday attacks by settlers on Palestinian civilians in the West Bank were “unacceptable and must stop.”

“Israeli authorities must take measures to protect all communities from harm, this includes intervening to stop such violence, and holding all perpetrators of such violence to account,” a White House spokesperson added.

The Israelis have killed at least 632 Palestinians and displaced 1,390 in more than 1,000 attacks in the West Bank since 7 October, according to data collected from Israeli forces, Palestinian authorities and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

In that same period, the Israelis have killed more than 40,000 Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza, according to the Palestinian authorities.

The Israeli war in Gaza, launched after Hamas raided southern Israel and killed about 1,200 people, has also displaced 1.9 million people in the besieged territory and left the entire population of over 2.2 million at the risk of famine and disease, according to the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

The unrelenting Israeli violence in the West Bank, which long predates 7 October, has prompted international sanctions, including by the US, against a few settlers.

Announcing the sanctions earlier, president Joe Biden said violence by Israeli settlers had reached “intolerable levels”.

The measures, meant as a deterrent, expose the settlers to asset freezes and travel and visa bans.

The Israeli military said one person had been arrested for their alleged involvement in the attack on Jit.

It condemned the incident, which it said diverted Israeli forces from other responsibilities, and said they were examining reports about a death caused during the attack.

The military claimed that the attackers were removed from the village “within minutes”.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that "those responsible for any criminal act will be caught and prosecuted".

“I take seriously the riots that took place this evening in the village of Jit, which included injury to life and property by Israelis who entered the village,” he said.