Israeli settler rampage in West Bank injures dozens, including baby

Israeli settlers carried out a brutal assault on the Palestinian village of Khillet al-Dabaa in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, in the early hours of Friday, leaving men, women, children, and elderly residents injured.

Groups of settlers armed with sticks and knives stormed the village before dawn, stabbing and beating residents, according to Hassan Mleihat, general coordinator of the Al-Baydar Organisation for the Defence of Bedouin Rights.

Seventy-year-old Ali al-Dabbabseh and his wife Amina were struck on the head, his son Abbas al-Dabbabseh was stabbed, and his wife sustained fractures and bruises.

Their three-month-old daughter suffered bruising, while their two other sons were left with wounds. Several other residents, including Hani al-Dabbabseh and Basel Amer, were also injured.

Al-Baidar described the assault as part of a wider settler campaign to "terrorise Palestinians out of their land". He said that the attacks continue to happen under the protection of Israeli forces in the occupied territory.

In a statement, the organisation warned these assaults amount to war crimes and urged international human rights bodies to intervene, warning that inaction would only embolden settlers.

Settler attacks also targeted the north of the occupied West Bank. Around 2 a.m. on Friday, they broke into the Pine Tree Nursery on the road between Yetma and Qabalan, south of Nablus, and wrecked the site, uprooting trees and smashing equipment.

Meanwhile, Israeli forces stormed Khirbet Yanun near Aqraba with military jeeps, including the village mosque, in what residents said was part of a wider campaign to pressure isolated communities into leaving.

The assaults were followed by a series of military raids across the West Bank. In al-Mughayyir, north-east of Ramallah, Israeli forces detained three residents, identified as Watan Abu Alia, Yusri Abu Alia, and Mohammed Abu Naim.

In Haris, west of Salfit, more than 15 people were rounded up in a single raid, while a Palestinian man was arrested in Qalqilya.

Israeli annexation in West Bank is 'red line', says UAE

As Palestinians endured settler terror and mass arrests on Friday, Israel's annexation drive was under international scrutiny earlier this week.

On Wednesday, the United Arab Emirates, one of the few Arab states that normalised ties with Israel under the controversial 2020 Abraham Accords, warned that annexation of West Bank territory would be a "red line".

Lana Nusseibeh, the UAE's assistant minister for political affairs, said in a statement that such moves would "severely undermine" the normalisation deal and "end the pursuit of regional integration".

Nusseibeh pointed out that the UAE had always viewed the accords as a way to continue supporting the Palestinian people and their "legitimate aspiration for an independent state".

Her comments came one day after Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich once again called for the illegal annexation of large areas of the occupied West Bank.

Despite repeated UN Security Council resolutions affirming the illegality of Israeli settlement construction and the inadmissibility of acquiring land by force, Israeli leaders continue to push policies that entrench military occupation and make the establishment of a Palestinian state impossible.

Just last month, Israel advanced a massive settlement project in the sensitive E1 area near Jerusalem in a move that the international community had long warned would sever the West Bank, cut off East Jerusalem, and extinguish hopes for a contiguous Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital. Smotrich said the project was intended to "bury the idea of a Palestinian state".

On Wednesday, he said annexing large parts of the West Bank would "take the idea of dividing our tiny land and establishing a terrorist state at its centre off the agenda once and for all".

Nusseibeh said: "We call on the Israeli government to suspend these plans [...] Extremists, of any kind, cannot be allowed to dictate the region's trajectory."