Israeli settlers on Saturday stole hundreds of sheep from a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank, as the Palestinian Authority carried out a campaign of arrests slammed by Hamas as politically motivated.
Settlers raided a farm belonging to a Palestinian man named Thaer al-Nabali in Kobar, northwest of Ramallah, where they assault the farm’s guard and detained him after tying his hands, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
It said that the settlers stole approximately 200 sheep in addition to a vehicle that was parked near the farm, before leaving the area.
The latest assault comes amid a surge in attacks by extremist Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, where Israel continues to push forward with its construction of illegal Jewish settlements.
According to data from the Palestinian Authority’s Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, settlers carried out about 4,723 attacks in the West Bank during 2025, resulting in the killing of 14 Palestinians and the displacement of 13 Bedouin communities comprising 1,090 people.
Over a thousand Palestinians have been killed in military raids and settler attacks since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Separately, Hamas slammed the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) over what it called a political arrest campaign, saying these arrests were exacerbating inter-Palestinian tensions “at a time considered the most dangerous for our national cause.”
The PA is based in Ramallah and exerts limited control over some areas of the West Bank, occupied by Israel since 1967. It is led by President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah movement, Hamas’ main rival.
Hamas used to govern the entirety of the Gaza Strip, where it battled Israeli forces for two years.
“The arrests carried out by the Authority in the West Bank directly serve the objectives of the [Israeli] occupation by targeting resistance fighters, elites, and free voices,” a statement by Hamas said.
“We warn of the dangers of the Palestinian Authority’s security services persisting in this repressive, unpatriotic approach, and of the brutality faced by detainees in prisons, including torture and abuse,” it continued.
Hamas called on the PA to “immediately halt all forms of political detention and to release all detainees”.
In late 2024, the PA – backed by Israeli forces – launched its largest and most heavily armed operation in its three decades to thwart Palestinian fighters in Jenin.
The operation led to heavy fighting between PA forces and Palestinian fighters, resulting in dozens of casualties and arrests.
While the PA has a relatively strong presence in the southern and central West Bank, it has failed to assert control in the northern part of the territory, especially the refugee camps in Jenin, Nablus and Tulkarem areas.
Israel’s military launched ‘Operation Iron Wall’ in January last year, targeting the northern West Bank.
