Israeli forces stormed a polling station during Palestinian local elections in the occupied West Bank on Saturday evening, injuring six people, as wider raids and settler attacks were reported across the territory. The vote formed part of Palestinian local elections for municipal and village councils, with polling stations closing earlier in the evening and counting under way, with results expected on Sunday. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, Israeli troops raided a polling centre in the Khallet al-Miya village cluster south of Hebron and assaulted those present.
In a statement, the organisation said its teams "dealt with 6 injuries" resulting from the attack, adding that treatment was provided on site. Local sources said the Israeli troops entered the area while firing tear gas and sound bombs towards residents, causing several cases of suffocation and damaging a number of vehicles. The raid came amid a broader wave of Israeli attacks across the West Bank overnight and into Sunday, involving both Israeli forces and settlers.
In Ramallah, the Palestinian Red Crescent said its crews treated a young man shot in the thigh with live ammunition near the separation barrier on land belonging to the town of al-Ram, north of Jerusalem. He was transferred to hospital. During a separate raid on the village of Duma south of Nablus, medics recorded a 27-year-old man shot in the thigh and a 28-year-old woman wounded in the face by bullet shrapnel; both were hospitalised.
Israeli forces also carried out raids and arrests across multiple areas overnight, while closing the entrances to the town of Tuqu’, southeast of Bethlehem, with earth mounds, restricting residents’ movement. Settler violence was also reported in several areas. Local sources said settlers uprooted around 400 olive trees in the plain of Turmus Ayya, northeast of Ramallah.
Sources told The New Arab that settlers abducted an elderly man, Shaher al-Tawil, in his sixties, from the entrance to the town of Far’ata east of Qalqilya on Saturday. He was reportedly assaulted and taken to the "Gilad" settlement built on Qalqilya land before being released hours later. He is the father of Amina al-Tawil, a Palestinian detainee in Israeli prisons.
Hassan Mleihat, general supervisor of the Al-Baidar human rights organisation, told The New Arab that settlers stormed the al-Shajara Bedouin community south of Nablus, accompanied by cattle which they grazed on residents’ land. He added that settlers also released livestock near Palestinian homes in the Hamroush area east of Sa’ir, north of Hebron. Mleihat further said settlers attacked farmers in the al-Balqa area, classified as Area A - theoretically under full Palestinian control - north of Jericho while they were working their land, and seized a vehicle belonging to a resident from the Rashayda Bedouin community.
In other incidents, settlers attacked an agricultural structure in the town of Beita and a home in Qusra, both south of Nablus, where a family was reportedly trapped inside after electricity was cut. In the village of Beit Iksa, northwest of Jerusalem, settlers attacked farmers and fired dozens of tear gas canisters at them under the protection of Israeli forces. According to official Palestinian data, at least 1,154 Palestinians have been killed, around 11,750 injured, and nearly 22,000 arrested by Israeli forces and settlers since the Gaza War broke out in October 2023.