Two Israeli settler attacks in Tal village near Nablus on July 24, 2026, left four Palestinians and two Israelis dead, according to Human Rights Watch, prompting an immediate escalation of military deployments, retaliatory settler raids across the West Bank, and calls from Israeli officials for the destruction of Palestinian communities.
The July 24 bloodshed pushes the Palestinian death toll in the occupied West Bank since July 19 to 10. Figures from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs show that at least 68 Palestinians had been killed in the territory in 2026, with settlers responsible for at least 13 of those deaths. On the Israeli side, OCHA tracking through July 15 recorded 20 injuries in the West Bank this year. Violence linked to settlers has risen sharply since the current Israeli government took office in October 2022, with a spike in March and April 2026 during the United States and Israel’s war with Iran.
Human Rights Watch documented the Tal village violence through interviews with two eyewitnesses and a local activist, alongside the verification of six social media and direct-transfer videos.
The first assault began between 6:10 and 6:45 a.m. on July 24, when a crowd of 40 to 50 settlers, including children, approached Tal from the east. Witnesses stated the group targeted four or five Palestinian homes with stones and attempted forced entry. A physical clash broke out, during which an armed settler shot and wounded a local Palestinian man. Additional residents rushed to defend the family, forcing the settlers to retreat.
Roughly 30 minutes later, the same settler faction returned from the southwest, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, according to local resident Mujahid Waleed, who witnessed both phases of the violence.
“When I arrived, the settlers and the Palestinians were already fighting,” Waleed said. “The settlers were attacking the Palestinians, and the army stood by and didn’t intervene. The army only intervened once a Palestinian man disarmed a settler and started shooting at the soldier and settlers. The army fired back and killed point-blank the [Palestinian] carrying the weapon, and settlers and soldiers shot the other three unarmed Palestinians.”
The incident unfolded in Area B, a zone designated for joint Israeli-Palestinian Authority security oversight under the Oslo II Accords. The four Palestinian men killed were two brothers and two cousins belonging to the Ramadan family.
Two verified and geolocated videos corroborate Waleed’s description. One recording depicts two armed settlers and a uniformed soldier standing near a group of Palestinian men. The settlers appear to initiate a physical confrontation, kicking a Palestinian man before a general fight ensues and a soldier discharges a weapon into the air. As two Palestinians attempt to take the settlers’ weapons, shots ring out and a Palestinian man collapses. Another video captures a second Palestinian man seizing a firearm from a settler and forcing him to the ground; the settler draws a handgun, and the Palestinian man appears to fire back.
The Israeli military issued a statement at 9:32 a.m. reporting that troops were dispatched following reports of “an attack on Israeli civilians who were hiking in the area” and that “terrorists stole the weapon of a security personnel who had arrived at the scene and opened fire toward the Israeli civilians.”
The military later confirmed the deaths of Benyahu Mellet, 32, and Maj. Yuval Ezra, 27, an active-duty soldier. According to reporting by the Times of Israel, a platoon commander returned fire and killed the Palestinian gunman. The military statement did not address the deaths of the other three Palestinians.
Mellet headed the civil defense squad for the Havat Gilad settlement, a unit established by the National Security Ministry after October 7, 2023, equipped with special policing powers, uniforms, and weapons. Human Rights Watch and other monitoring organizations have frequently documented armed settler assaults occurring alongside passive military units that stand by without intervening, pointing to state-backed financial, material, and legal support for violent settlers. The creation of these civil defense squads and settler-only regional defense battalions has further blurred operational lines between civilian settlers and active-duty soldiers.
Following an emergency security meeting convened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the government announced the redeployment of five military battalions to the West Bank and ordered an intensive counterterrorism operation. Concurrently, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported a wave of settler reprisal attacks involving arson, injuries, and property damage in neighboring villages.
Netanyahu also announced plans to accelerate the regularization of settler outposts and establish new ones. These structures, illegal under Israeli law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, frequently serve as launching pads for attacks on Palestinian communities and function as precursors to larger settlements.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich publicly urged Netanyahu to authorize a settlement directly at the Sela outpost near the site of the morning attack, calling for the territory to be transferred from Area B to Area C—which is fully Israeli-controlled territory.
Israeli officials also issued direct calls for the destruction of Palestinian homes and villages. Smotrich demanded that Palestinian villages “should look like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarem,” referring to locations devastated during a January 2025 military operation that Human Rights Watch concluded constituted war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ethnic cleansing.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir wrote on X that “The cities and villages of the killers in the West Bank should be treated the same way Beit Hanoun was treated in Gaza. … For every Jew murdered – the enemy must absorb the loss of lands and homes.”
The escalation follows a July 2024 finding from the International Court of Justice ruling that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful and in violation of prohibitions against racial segregation and apartheid. The court found Israel has an obligation to evacuate all West Bank and East Jerusalem settlers, allow displaced Palestinians to return to their homes, and provide them with reparations.
Governments should urgently act to prevent further atrocities across the West Bank, including by implementing targeted sanctions against individuals implicated in grave abuses, suspending arms transfers to Israel, banning trade with illegal settlements, suspending preferential trade agreements, and backing the ongoing investigations and arrest warrants of the International Criminal Court.
“The settler violence against Tal is a reminder that if the violence is not stopped and those responsible are not held to account, escalation and further atrocities are inevitable,” said Sarah Sanbar, acting Israel and Palestine researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Governments need to act urgently so that the Israeli government does not continue to act as if it has a green light to commit further atrocities.”
