Palestine weekly: West Bank in flames after Tal killings

What the report says

Al Jazeera reported that a July 24 attack by more than 20 Israeli settlers from the Havat Gilad settlement on Palestinian homes near Tal, southwest of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, triggered several days of escalating violence. According to the report, residents first pushed the settlers back before they returned with Israeli soldiers. Video cited by Al Jazeera appeared to show a Palestinian man taking a settler’s rifle and fatally shooting him before soldiers killed the Palestinian man. Four Palestinians from the Ramadan family, one settler and one Israeli soldier were killed in the wider violence.

In response, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered what Al Jazeera described as a wide military operation, including home demolition, permit revocations in villages he labelled “terror hotspots,” additional army forces and faster recognition of settler farms and outposts that are illegal under Israeli law. Israeli public radio was cited as saying 26 army battalions were deployed across the West Bank. Al Jazeera also reported nightly raids in Tal, dozens of arrests, searches of about 70 homes, and operations in Jenin, Tubas, Ramallah, Hebron, Bethlehem, Tulkarem and occupied East Jerusalem.

The report said the killings were followed by widespread settler attacks, arson and road closures. Citing local officials, Palestinian agencies and Israeli media, Al Jazeera described homes and vehicles burned in Sarra, fires and injuries in Farata, two mosques set alight in Qusra and near Tulkarem, and tightened checkpoints that delayed ambulance transfers around Nablus.

Al Jazeera placed the events in a broader pattern of rising West Bank settler violence and Israeli military activity, and also reported continued Israeli strikes in Gaza after the October 2025 ceasefire, citing Gaza health officials’ toll of 1,203 Palestinians killed since then.