Violence in the West Bank has escalated sharply in recent months. But even by those standards, last Friday’s deadly incident on the outskirts of the northern West Bank village of Tell seemed to mark something new and harrowing.

The clash began when an ideologically motivated settler group entered Tell, located in Areas A and B of the West Bank, and was confronted by local residents. The ensuing melee between radical settlers, later joined by Israeli troops, and Palestinian villagers resulted in six deaths: two Israelis and four Palestinians.

Much of what occurred remains in dispute, but all sides agree that whatever happened did not start that sweltering morning. How it ends, many fear, may be even more cataclysmic.

For years, Palestinians subjected to regular settler harassment, theft and violence, on top of what are often already dire living conditions, have been warning of an “explosion.” To some, Friday’s deadly firefight, which came the day after a settler from an adjacent outpost was stabbed and his assailant killed, appeared to be the opening salvo of the foretold conflagration.

With Palestinians seemingly increasingly organizing to resist settler violence, the Tell incident, though apparently unrelated, has renewed Israeli concerns over the emergence of grassroots village watch groups in the West Bank that could violently resist settlers who are increasingly entering Palestinian communities.

In the wake of the shooting, Palestinian officials called for more such groups to organize and prepare for possible confrontations. And while they are unarmed, there are worries among Israeli officials that that could change.

Radical settlers, meanwhile, seem to be raring for a fight, and Israeli authorities have shown little willingness to constrain them. The catastrophic disturbance in Tell set off a series of mass reprisals by settler extremists against Palestinian villages across the West Bank over Friday, Saturday and into this week.

And the army is liable to keep putting pressure on the Palestinians, treating both retaliatory attacks on Israelis and self-defense as terrorism.

In the wake of the Tell clash, the IDF conducted raids in several villages, detained dozens of Palestinians and imposed severe restrictions on Palestinian freedom of movement in the region, keeping residents of local villages shut inside their dwellings and, according to human rights groups, unable to access basic goods and services.

While some West Bank observers note that what happened at Tell was simply the continuation of trends already at play and question whether it will be the spark that sets off the West Bank powderkeg, others fear that it may be a harbinger of even greater unrest and destabilization.

“Friday wasn’t a point of change, after all, it could have ended without deaths,” said Yonatan Kanonich, head of research at the Yesh Din organization, which monitors settler violence.

“But the last few days have been catastrophic,” he added, pointing to the settler reprisal attacks and IDF clampdown. “Those paying the price of settler attacks are always the Palestinians through the IDF’s response.”

Although........

© The Times of Israel