“Hell broke loose,” said Mohammad Awad Toroms, a 26-year-old resident of Turmus Ayya. Like many others in the small community, he is also a U.S. citizen.
“We were left alone, with no one to protect us, neither the Palestinian authorities nor the Israeli soldiers,” added Toroms. He said he helped treat five people who were hit by live rounds.
Earlier Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that 1,000 new housing units would be built in Eli, the Israeli settlement where Palestinian militants opened fire on Israeli civilians Tuesday outside a gas station and hummus restaurant. In addition to the fatalities, four Israelis were wounded in the mass shooting, including one who was in serious condition.
“Our answer to terrorism is to strike at it forcefully and build up our country,” read a joint statement from Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a far-right settler who also occupies a special position in the Defense Ministry.
Israeli soldiers, police and firefighters entered Turmus Ayya “to extinguish the fires, prevent clashes and to collect evidence,” according to an army statement, and were met by stone-throwing Palestinians. During the clashes, 27-year-old Omar Ketin was fatally shot in the chest, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, though the circumstances of his death remained unclear.
The Israel Defense Forces condemned the rampage, which the military said would “prevent the IDF and security forces from focusing on their main mission — maintaining the security of the State of Israel and preventing terrorism.” It added that Israeli police have opened an investigation into the incident.
“We won’t tolerate any form of rampaging,” Netanyahu vowed.
The Anti-Defamation League, a New York-based Jewish advocacy organization, also issued a swift condemnation: “There’s no excuse for violence. Israeli security forces must go after all those involved and do more to protect Palestinian individuals and property,” the group said on Twitter.
Wednesday’s attack was reminiscent of a February assault by vigilante settlers in the West Bank town of Huwara, after the killing of two Israeli brothers by a Palestinian gunman. In the aftermath, Smotrich said that Huwara, the gunman’s hometown, should be “wiped out” and that “Israel should be the one to do it.” Under international pressure, he later backtracked, saying he did not realize his words could be interpreted as a military order.
Though videos circulating on social media appeared to show settlers meeting little resistance as they stormed through Turmus Ayya on Wednesday, Israeli soldiers thwarted smaller settler attacks Tuesday night on Huwara, Beit Furik and other Palestinian villages, according to local media.
Violence is surging across the West Bank as Israel expands settlements and Palestinian militant networks attract recruits. On Monday, a pre-dawn Israeli military raid in the city of Jenin devolved into an unusually fierce, eight-hour-long firefight that left seven Palestinians dead. For the first time since the early 2000s, Israel used combat helicopters to extricate its soldiers, who were pinned down by militant fire.
At least 114 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank as of June 12, including militants and civilians, according to the United Nations. At least 19 Israelis were killed by Palestinians over the same period, a U.N. humanitarian agency said.
Israel’s new government is the most far-right in the country’s history, having risen to power by promising to tighten the occupation of the Palestinian territories and take a harder line on combating terrorism. Some cabinet officials, including Smotrich and national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, were detained by Israeli security forces in the past for their involvement with anti-Arab terrorist groups.
They draw their most passionate support from Israeli settlers, who number more than 500,000 in the West Bank and have increasingly asserted that it is their responsibility to respond to Palestinian violence.
“You are a new force in the field that can change the equation and reach a state of zero terrorism!” said a message posted Wednesday in “Fighting for life,” a WhatsApp group that regularly calls on Israeli settlers to avenge Palestinian attacks. “It is possible, and it is in our hands!
In the Eli settlement, funerals were held Wednesday for the victims of Tuesday’s shooting, including Elisha Anteman, 17, and Ofer Feierman, 63.
Michal Visel, a spokeswoman for Eli, told Channel 12 that the rampage in Turmus Ayya was carried out by young people “incensed” by the situation.
“I can’t judge people who are trying to take out their disappointment,” she said.
Smotrich, meanwhile, has called on Israel to deploy its air force and launch a broad military operation in the West Bank — a move analysts warned could spur a return to the relentless bloodshed of the second intifada two decades ago.
“A perfect storm is raging: a 56 year old Israeli occupation; the most extreme Israeli government; Hamas/Jihad backed cells and independent Palestinian groups in West Bank planning terror attacks,” tweeted Aaron David Miller, a former State Department coordinator for Arab-Israeli negotiations.
He called the situation “a bloody cul-de-sac [with] no way out.”
Taha reported from Jerusalem.