Netanyahu launches West Bank operation, orders new settler outposts after clashes kill four Palestinians and two Israelis
After settlers attacked a Palestinian village near Nablus, violence erupted, leaving four Palestinians and two Israelis dead. Benjamin Netanyahu responded with a major military deployment and orders for new settler outposts.
Settlers enter Tell village, confrontation erupts
At around 7 am on 24 July 2026, about 100 extremist Jewish settlers from the Har Brakha settlement entered the Palestinian village of Tell in the northern West Bank, attacking homes. Residents rushed to defend themselves, and hand-to-hand clashes broke out in the presence of Israeli soldiers. Tell village council head Walid Zidan described the incursion.
Villagers came out to defend their homes and property. Clashes and physical altercations broke out between the residents and the settlers.
Eyewitness Ahmed Zeidan told the BBC that locals confronted roughly 30 settlers on that morning. A local Fatah leader, Essam Saifi, told Reuters that settlers opened fire before Israeli forces arrived and also started shooting.
Four Palestinians and two Israelis killed
The Palestinian Health Ministry said four Palestinians were killed and four others wounded. The dead included two brothers and two of their cousins, according to Saifi. Israel's military reported that a security guard from a nearby settler outpost was killed and his weapon stolen by a Palestinian, and another Israeli died in the exchange. The Israeli ambulance service said two Israelis were wounded. The incident was the deadliest single clash in the occupied West Bank in months.
Military escalation and political reaction
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a joint statement calling for more troops, the razing of homes of suspects in Tell, confiscation of weapons and the revocation of work permits. Netanyahu said the following.
The security forces must be allowed to act freely and with full force against terrorism.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich went further, demanding that the villages of Tell, Iraq Burin and Beit Furik be treated like the refugee camps in Nablus and Tulkarm, which were subjected to mass demolition last year.
It is necessary to evacuate the population there for their protection and to clear these villages of terrorist infrastructure. A sharp, determined, and unequivocal military action is required here and now.
Netanyahu also ordered the acceleration of legalisation of existing outposts and the establishment of new ones. The IDF cancelled soldiers' leave and prepared for what it called an "extensive" counter-terror operation. Troops later raided a hospital in Nablus and arrested two men who had taken part in the clashes, with an AFP journalist witnessing one handcuffed man being led away.
Occupation and settlement expansion
The violence follows a surge in West Bank tensions since the Gaza war began with Hamas's attack on 7 October 2023. More than 500,000 Israelis now live in settlements in the West Bank, alongside about three million Palestinians (excluding east Jerusalem). All settlements are illegal under international law, and outposts like Havat Gilad, near Tell, are also illegal under Israeli law. The area had already seen attacks on Havat Gilad the previous weekend.
