Random settlement outposts spread and expanded in the West Bank during the war on Gaza, and attacks on Bedouin communities and residents of neighboring villages escalated, and “Palestinian residents were removed from areas controlled by settlers,” according to a report published by the Haaretz newspaper today, Friday.

The newspaper reported that the settlers' attacks were accompanied by the use of "excessive military force" by reserve units in the Israeli army, whose soldiers were called for military service following the outbreak of the war on Gaza.

The newspaper described these attacks and the settlers’ seizure of large lands as the state’s “loss of control” over these crimes.

The newspaper added, "The influence of Ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich empties any step taken by the police, as well as the Shin Bet to a certain extent, in confronting the violence of far-right activists."

The newspaper indicated that the security situation in the West Bank, and in occupied Jerusalem in particular, may escalate if Ben Gvir storms Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan, as happened in May 2021, which prompted Hamas to fire rockets towards Jerusalem, followed by an aggression against... Gaza lasted ten days.

More than 360 Palestinians in the West Bank have been killed since the beginning of the war on Gaza, by Israeli army fire, and some cases by settler fire.

The newspaper considered that this number of killed "does not reflect the loss of security control in the West Bank."

It added that Israeli pressure on the Palestinians in the West Bank, “along with a continuing, undeclared effort by the Palestinian Authority against Hamas, has so far prevented the outbreak of a third widespread intifada. But the head of the Shin Bet, Ronen Bar, and the army chief of staff, Herzi Halevy, warn during any security deliberations From a nearby explosion in the West Bank.”

The newspaper added that the reasons for a possible explosion in the West Bank are related to cutting off the livelihood of Palestinian workers after the Israeli government’s decision to prevent their entry to work in Israel, reducing the salaries of the Authority’s employees and members of its security services, and the prevailing anger due to the terrible number of martyrs in the Gaza Strip, and the expectation that this anger will escalate during the month of Ramadan.

According to the newspaper, for the far-right parties in the Israeli government, the escalation of fires in the West Bank fulfills an old dream of the collapse of the Palestinian Authority’s rule in the West Bank, in addition to the frustration that a political step in the Gaza Strip would return the Authority to the situation there.