4 days ago
Several Palestinian people reported injured in overnight attack by Israeli settlers in West Bank – Middle East crisis live
Update:
Date: 2025-08-15T07:12:02.000Z
Title: Susya
Content: Settlers attacked Palestinian people in village of , south of Hebron, while separately settlers reportedly attacked village of Atara and set fire to vehicles
Yohannes Lowe
Fri 15 Aug 2025 09.12 CEST
First published on Fri 15 Aug 2025 09.02 CEST
9.12am CEST
09:12
Here is some more detail on the controversial plan to significantly expand a settlement near occupied East Jerusalem.
The decision from the Supreme Planning Council, which meets next week, is expected to support the plan after rejecting objections by Israeli NGOs.
The expected decision in favour will come after Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – who backs both the plan and the imposition of Israeli sovereignty through the occupied West Bank – gloated that he believed construction on E1 would 'bury the idea of a Palestinian state'.
Smotrich is a junior minister who also holds a position at Israel's defence ministry with oversight of planning issues in the occupied Palestinian territories. He was placed under sanctions along with fellow far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir by the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in June for 'repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities'.
Standing at the site of the planned settlement in Ma'ale Adumim on Thursday, Smotrich, a settler himself, said the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and US president, Donald Trump, had agreed to the revival of the E1 development, though there was no immediate confirmation from either.
While approval for the plan would be a significant step, it remained unclear on Thursday how much buy-in Smotrich has from Netanyahu and the Trump administration.
Netanyahu has not commented on Smotrich's remarks, while the US state department appeared to dodge the issue of E1 when questioned.
9.02am CEST
09:02
Welcome to our live coverage of Israel's war on Gaza. Several Palestinian people are reported to have been injured in an overnight attack by Israeli settlers in the southern West Bank village of , south of Hebron, according to the Times of Israel. A man and his wife were reportedly injured in the attack and were taken to hospital to be treated.
Separately, Israeli settlers were reported to have attacked the village of Atara, also in the occupied West Bank, and set fire to several Palestinian-owned vehicles. There were no immediate reports of any casualties or arrests.
The attacks come amid a wave of violence in the West Bank, where more than 1,000 Palestinians are reported to have been killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers since 7 October 2023.
Accountability for settlers who commit acts of violence against Palestinians is extremely rare, particularly under Israel's current rightwing government.
Israel's far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said on Wednesday that about 3,400 new housing units would be built in key Israeli-occupied territory, effectively burying 'the idea of a Palestinian state'.
As my colleague Peter Beaumont notes in this story, the so-called E1 plan would extend the existing Jewish settlement of Ma'ale Adumim towards Jerusalem, further cutting occupied East Jerusalem from the West Bank, and further separating the north and south of the territory. The plan still requires formal approval but it is expected to pass a final procedural hurdle, despite huge international opposition.
The announcement comes after some of Israel's key western allies, such as Australia, Britain, Canada and France, pledged to soon recognise Palestinian statehood, under certain conditions, because of the humanitarian crisis Israel has caused in Gaza.
'This plan buries the idea of a Palestinian state,' Smotrich told journalists on Thursday. 'Anyone in the world today who tries to recognise a Palestinian state will receive an answer from us on the ground. Not in documents, not in decisions or declarations – but in facts.' We will have more on this and the other developments coming out of the Middle East shortly.
