JERUSALEM — Israeli extremists caused widespread damage in a wave of attacks on Palestinian towns that lasted from Tuesday night until Wednesday night in revenge for the killing of four Israelis by Palestinian gunmen outside a nearby settlement in the territory.
Scores of Israeli arsonists entered the Palestinian communities closest to the site of the shooting, setting fires that damaged dozens of cars and buildings and spurring confrontations with Palestinian villagers. At least one Palestinian was shot and killed, and 12 others were injured, some of them in clashes with the Israeli security forces, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the settler attacks unacceptable, saying: “The State of Israel is a state of law. The citizens of Israel are all obligated to respect the law.”
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But Netanyahu also attempted to assuage hard-line allies in his far-right government by announcing that he would immediately advance plans to build 1,000 more homes in Eli, the settlement in the West Bank close to the attack Tuesday by Palestinian gunmen.
Netanyahu said the decision, which will require further government approvals before construction begins, was a direct response to the attack. Two fighters from Hamas, the Islamist militia that controls the Gaza Strip, killed four Israeli civilians at a restaurant and gas station next to Eli before being killed themselves.
“Our answer to terrorism is to strike at it forcefully and build up our country,” Netanyahu said in a statement that was also issued on behalf of his defense minister, Yoav Gallant, and finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right former settler activist.
The Israeli military later conducted a rare drone strike in the northern West Bank on a car that it said was carrying a group of militants. Experts said the attack was one of the first aerial strikes on militants in the territory since the second intifada, or Palestinian uprising, in the 2000s.
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Netanyahu’s response highlighted the tension between his efforts to please pro-settler figures in his governing coalition — the most nationalist and socially conservative in Israeli history — and his simultaneous goal of strengthening Israel’s new diplomatic ties with Arab governments, which oppose Netanyahu’s approach to the Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s settlement plan won praise from right-wing coalition partners, many of whom want him to exert greater control over the West Bank. Some of them have previously excused settler violence, which they see as a legitimate response to Palestinian attacks.
But Netanyahu’s response is likely to worsen Israel’s relations in the Arab world, where leaders want him to reduce tensions in the West Bank and had already expressed anger this week at an earlier Israeli decision to expand and expedite settlement construction.
This week, Morocco postponed a long-awaited diplomatic summit with Israel in protest of Netanyahu’s settlement policy, diplomats from Israel and other countries said Wednesday.
Like Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, Morocco signed a landmark diplomatic agreement with Israel in 2020, ending years of diplomatic isolation for Israel in the region — and the assumption that Israel and Arab governments would not be able to make peace until there was a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
But while the three Arab countries have since hosted Israeli ministers and increased military cooperation with Israel’s government, they appear ambivalent about further deepening ties while Netanyahu’s administration continues its hard-line approach to the Palestinians.
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Similar concerns are expected to slow Netanyahu’s efforts to form formal ties with Saudi Arabia, despite a major push by the Biden administration to forge such a deal.
The arson Wednesday was centered in the village of Turmusayya, a frequent target of settler reprisals where many Palestinian residents also hold US citizenship. In interviews broadcast by the Palestinian news media, one resident said that her home had been set on fire while children were still inside. Residents called on the US ambassador in Jerusalem, Thomas Nides, to inspect the damage in person.
Palestinian outlets reported that at least nine other Palestinian villages were attacked by settlers who smashed shop windows, threw stones and assaulted Palestinians, and fired bullets at them.
Palestinians accused the Israeli security forces of standing by as the settlers attacked and even engaging in some of the violence itself.
In a statement, the Israeli police acknowledged shooting one Palestinian but said that its officers had opened fire only after Palestinian rioters disrupted efforts to put out fires. The Israeli military said it had acted to prevent clashes between Israelis and Palestinians and condemned the violence by settlers.
Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967, when it captured the territory from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli War. The territory is the focus of recurrent violence because its Palestinian residents want it to form the backbone of a Palestinian state. That goal has been undermined by Israel’s military occupation and its construction of hundreds of settlements that most countries consider a violation of international law.
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