Security forces are concerned that the security situation will escalate as a result of people trying to take revenge for the terror attacks over the weekend as a Palestinian house and car in Turmus Aiya near Ramallah were set on fire on Saturday by masked men who Israel Police suspect were Jewish.
Police suspect that the arson, which could be seen in a video from the scene was done as revenge for the two terror attacks that were carried out over the weekend in which seven people were murdered and a total of five were injured.
Aside from the arson, Palestinian media reported multiple Palestinian cars being set on fire by Israelis throughout the West Bank. However, these reports were not confirmed.
Left-wing activist group Yesh Din released a list of cases in which Jewish Israelis reportedly attacked Palestinians on Saturday night. There were at least four reported cases of settlers in the West Bank throwing stones at Palestinians, their homes and their cars while in the north and the Jordan Valley, Israelis allegedly caused severe damage to Palestinian-owned greenhouses and fields.
In another case, nonprofit organization B’Tselem claimed that settlers set up an illegal outpost on Palestinian-owned land and attacked the owners when they came to send the settlers away. The report also claimed that the settlers set fire to the landowners’ cars and attacked an ambulance and the medic in it who came to treat the Palestinians.
These attacks are part of the “price tag” activities of right-wing extremists who seek to make Palestinians pay the price for terror attacks against Jews by vandalizing Palestinians’ property and throwing stones at them.
Netanyahu warns against taking law into one's hands
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Israelis not to take part in such activity multiple times over the weekend, warning people not to “take the law into their own hands.”
The defense system’s report from the weekend marked close to 160 cases of stone-throwing in the West Bank over the weekend, 85 of which were cases in which stones were thrown at Palestinians, and in 40, damage was done to cars, according to N12.