[Published: Sunday March 15 2026]
 Deadly Israeli settler violence surges in West Bank during Iran war
ISRAELI OCCUPIED WEST BANK, 15 March. - (ANA) - While the world's attention is focused on the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Israeli-occupied West Bank has experienced a surge in deadly settler violence.
Since the start of the month, six Palestinians have been shot dead in settler attacks, according to a tally of data from the Ramallah-based health ministry.
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem said the increase in bloodshed "indicates the intensification of Israel's ethnic cleansing efforts under cover of the war with Iran".
That sentiment was shared by Palestinians on the ground.
"It seems that when the Iran war began, the settlers saw it as a golden opportunity," Ibrahim Hamayel, a resident of Abu Falah who tried to push back settlers, told AFP.
Hamayel said that the attacks have multiplied since Israel launched its campaign against the Islamic Republic on 28 February.
The figures appeared to back him up.
In the 28 months between the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023 and the start of the war with Iran last month, 24 Palestinians were killed by settlers, according to OCHA.
In addition to roughly three million Palestinians, more than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements and outposts in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.
'They were all masked'
Abu Falah resident Ibrahim Hamayel told AFP at the scene where a clash unfolded, that when the settlers came, "they were all masked and some of them were carrying firearms."
He pointed to the spot where one of the men had died that day in an olive tree grove. Blood stained the white limestone rocks, blending in with the West Bank's distinctive reddish soil.
Little stone circles had been laid as impromptu memorials to the men at the site where they died, a little Palestinian flag flapping above one.
Palestinians and Israeli rights groups say that the goal of harassment is to drive Palestinians from the land, one rocky hill at a time.
"Their aim is to implement their plans: displacement, confining Palestinian villages to their built-up areas only", Ibrahim Hamayel told AFP.
The UN says 180 Palestinians have been displaced since the war with Iran started on February 28, and 1,500 since the start of 2026.
"The level of violence in the West Bank is unacceptable," the European Union said in a recent statement, adding that many Palestinian communities "have been attacked, (their) properties damaged and livelihoods destroyed" since the Iran war began.
This comes after settler violence consistently breached record levels since the start of the war in Gaza, with displacement this year already at 90 percent of 2025 levels, per OCHA figures.
'Every day'
Muath Qassam, 32, also went to push back the settlers in Abu Falah, but he was initially unaware of the three deaths that shook his village.
"They hit me with a club on the head. As soon as that happened to me, I lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital", he told AFP from his home five days later, a large bandage on his forehead and yellowing bruises under his eyes.
Abu Falah sits in an area particularly prone to settler attacks and army violence, with near-daily incidents in neighbouring villages.
"Every day there are problems", Qassam said.
"Every day the settlers establish new outposts. We are not safe from them at all." - (ANA) -
AB/ANA/15 March 2026 - - -
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