Israeli forces have continued their crackdown in the occupied West Bank, arresting at least 23 Palestinians and demolishing several homes, as the United Nations warned that the situation in the territory was at a 'breaking point'.
The arrests and demolitions on Tuesday came as dozens of Israeli settlers continued attacks and raids on Palestinian villages, including one in Khirbet ar-Ras al-Ahmar, where parts of a water pipeline was destroyed.
According to the Palestinian Wafa news agency, those detained on Tuesday included two children, one of whom had a disability, as well as a man who was taken while he was grazing his livestock in al-Hadidiyah in the northern Jordan Valley. At least 11 others were arrested in the Jenin governorate, while five were detained in the Bethlehem area.
In the village of Tal, southwest of Nablus, Israeli forces demolished the family home of Farouq Ramadan, one of four Palestinians killed during a confrontation with Israeli settlers on July 24. Two Israelis were also killed in the incident.
Israel maintains a policy of demolishing the homes belonging to relatives of Palestinians involved in attacks against Israelis in an approach human rights groups have condemned as collective punishment.
Israeli forces also demolished another home near Yatta in the Hebron governorate and filled in a water well there, displacing nine Palestinians, according to Wafa. Twelve commercial warehouses in the village of Anza and an agricultural facility in the village of Yarza were also bulldozed, while in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, Israeli forces issued demolition notices for the Khallat al-Dabaa school, as well as several homes and agricultural structures.
According to UN figures, Israel has demolished an average of 122 Palestinian buildings every month this year.
Separately, dozens of settlers attacked a group of Palestinians ploughing their lands in Al-Mughayyir, wounding six people, including three children and two women.
Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Al-Mughayyir, said the settlers also burned part of the valley and attacked nearby homes.
'Upwards of 60 percent of Al-Mughayyir’s land has been confiscated by the Israeli army, while Israeli settlers have set up at least 11 illegal outposts in the village, barring the farmers from their land,' she said. 'Some 119 Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank have been uprooted by this very dynamic in the past three years. Palestinians are treated as trespassers in their own land, while Israeli settlers slash, burn, and steal the land with impunity,' she added.
In Khirbet Ras al-Ahmar, settlers also destroyed parts of the main water pipeline, cutting off supplies to 30 Palestinian herding families and to nearby farms, according to Wafa.
In Burqa, northwest of Nablus, six Palestinians, including two children, were wounded after Israeli forces assaulted residents during a raid, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. Settlers also raided the Nablus-area villages of Awarta, Osarin and Sarra.
The attacks form part of a sharp escalation in violence by Israeli forces and settlers across the occupied West Bank as Israel gears up for a parliamentary election in October.
Addressing the UN Security Council on Tuesday, Deputy Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Ramiz Alakbarov said the West Bank was at 'breaking point'.
He said Israeli forces and settlers have killed 76 Palestinians, including 18 children, in the occupied territory so far this year, while about 3,800 Palestinians – nearly half of them children – have been displaced by settler violence, demolitions and evictions.
The UN has documented more than 1,430 settler attacks resulting in casualties or property damage across roughly 260 Palestinian communities in 2026, he said, with many carried out in the presence of Israeli forces. Since January 2023, 127 Palestinian communities have been fully or partially displaced, including 47 completely uprooted, affecting more than 6,390 people.
Alakbarov said settler attacks, once concentrated mainly in Area C, where Israel holds full civil and security control, are increasingly spreading into Areas A and B.
Israeli authorities have also advanced or approved roughly 12,360 settlement housing units across the West Bank this year, including 5,160 in occupied East Jerusalem, he said.
'These are interconnected steps, not isolated developments,' Alakbarov said, warning that they were reshaping the occupied West Bank, weakening Palestinian governance and advancing 'de facto annexation'.
Source: www.aljazeera.com