At least three Israeli settlers were killed and several others wounded in a shooting attack near the illegal settlement of Kedumim near the Al-Funduq village, in the northern occupied West Bank, on Monday, January 6.
The attack was reportedly carried out by three Palestinian resistance fighters, who opened fire on a bus and two cars that were traveling on a highway near the settlement. Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) deployed a large number of personnel to the site of the attack, after the fighters managed to escape unharmed. Additional military reinforcements were also sent to Al-Funduq, where they have been searching for evidence, including footage recorded by surveillance cameras in the village and even in neighboring villages.
On Sunday, January 5, a Palestinian girl attempted to carry out a stabbing attack against a number of illegal Israeli settlers, who entered Deir Qaddis town, west of Ramallah in the central occupied West Bank. Although some media outlets reported that an Israeli woman was injured in the attack, Israeli media later denied the injury of any settler.
The IOF and Israeli police surrounded the village after the attempted attack, searching for the suspect. On Monday, media reports surfaced claiming that the Palestinian Authority’s security forces handed the suspect to the Israeli occupation authorities. However, the father of the suspect appeared in an interview posted online a few hours later, refuting the claim and stating that he handed his daughter to the Israeli authorities by himself.
On Wednesday, January 1, an Israeli soldier was injured, when a Palestinian man tried to hit several soldiers with his car near Deir Qaddis village, before he was shot by the IOF, sustaining critical injuries.
The West Bank is at a tipping point
The three attacks took place within a few days, which marks a serious escalation in the West Bank amid a very sensitive and crucial phase of the Palestinian struggle against Israel. No resistance group or movement has declared its responsibility for any of the three attacks that occurred during the course of the first week of 2025.
This in turn may foreshadow a possibility that the operations were carried out by individuals, who have no affiliations to any group or movement, posing a real threat to the ongoing military campaigns carried out by both the IOF, and the PA’s security forces in the West Bank. The ongoing crackdowns seek to crush armed resistance groups in the occupied territories, but if more operations are carried out individually, it would mean that the situation is going out of the IOF and the PA’s control.
Speaking to Peoples Dispatch, freedom fighter and former prisoner in Israeli jails, Omar Assaf shared his thoughts about the recent resistance operations. Assaf commented that “these operations came in the context of a natural reaction to Israel’s 15-month genocidal aggression on the Gaza strip. They also represent self-defense, in confrontation of the planned projects of Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. These projects include expanding settlements, confiscating Palestinian lands, desecrating holy sites, in addition to implementing the so-called “Decisive Plan” to resolve the conflict, by taking over large parts of the West Bank, alongside arresting Palestinians by IOF soldiers, and exposing them to the violent attacks of Israeli settlers.”
On the other hand, Assaf considers these operations “a message to the Palestinian Authority and its security forces, which tells them that no matter how much their campaign in Jenin refugee camp intensifies, it will never deviate resistance fighters from the track of resisting the occupation, and defending their rights. In this way, resistance fighters would further aggravate the Palestinian Authority’s embarrassment and isolation.”
Resistance is inevitable, say Palestinian movements
Palestinian movements including the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), the Islamic Jihad Movement, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), praised the recent resistance operations in the West Bank.
Hamas hailed the operation near Al-Funduq village in a statement saying that it was carried out “in response to the ongoing crimes and war of genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the displacement plans in the West Bank.”
“The shooting operation east of Qalqilya confirms that resistance in the West Bank will continue despite the occupation’s terrorism and strict security measures,” Hamas said. Hamas also called for an “escalation of resistance, and for more clashes and painful operations in all regions to deprive the occupier and its settlers of security, and thwart its malicious plans of annexation and displacement.”
For his part, the spokesperson of Hamas’s military wing Al-Qassam Brigades, Abu Obaida, said in a statement on his official Telegram channel: “Once again, the resilient heroes of the West Bank prove they are at the heart of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. All attempts by the occupation and its allies to break their spirit or deter them from supporting Gaza are doomed to fail.”
“The enemy must understand that as long as it continues its massacres and aggression in Gaza and the West Bank, it will pay a heavy price in the blood of its soldiers and settlers. True security will remain out of reach until it is secured for the people of Palestine,” Abu Obaida added.
Islamic Jihad stated that “the continuation of heroic operations carried out by Palestinians, confirms that the Palestinian people will never abandon their land and that they are determined to expel the occupation out of it.” The movement added that the operation delivers a message to the leaders of the Zionist entity that “all their crimes and terrorism will only enhance our insistence to continue resisting.”
PFLP asserted that “the operation was carried out at the right time and place to deliver a strong message to the Israeli occupation that resistance is still present in the West Bank and fully prepared to deal qualitative and abrupt blows to IOF soldiers and to the settlers at any moment.”
“This heroic operation confirms that every span of the occupied West Bank territory is an open field for the resistance heroes,” PFLP added, emphasizing that all attempts of Israel or other actors to uproot the resistance or the will of its fighters through assassinations, targeting, siege and restrictions will be thwarted.”
Israeli officials want to turn the West Bank into Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli officials responded to the operations by threatening to escalate the violence in the West Bank and turn it into another Gaza. “Al-Funduk, Nablus and Jenin need to look like [Gaza’s] Jabalia,” Smotritch said in a statement. “Those who trust the Palestinian Authority to maintain the security of Israeli citizens are waking up to a morning when terrorists are again slaughtering Jewish residents,” he added.
Referring to the attackers who carried out the same operation, Netanyahu’s office said in a statement on Monday that the Israeli Prime Minister approved military operations “to apprehend the terrorists and bring them to justice, as well as a series of additional offensive and defensive actions in Judea and Samaria.”
Israel’s Defense Minister, Israel Katz, ordered the IOF to “act forcefully against any place where the murderers’ footsteps lead. We will not accept a Gazan reality in Judea and Samaria, and anyone who follows the path of Hamas in Gaza and enables and sponsors the murder and harm of Jews will pay a heavy price.”
