Dusk was settling over Kafr Malik, a quiet Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank. At the Afeef family’s home on the outskirts, a mother was putting her newborn to sleep in a ground-floor bedroom. Another relative was pulling up outside with her four young children in the car.
That calm was shattered soon afterward when scores of Israelis, many masked, descended on the village by foot and in vehicles, according to witnesses and local officials.
The attackers hurled Molotov cocktails and set homes and cars on fire, the witnesses and local officials said. The Israeli military said in a statement that dozens of Israeli civilians had set Palestinian property ablaze.
The violence in Kafr Malik, northeast of Ramallah, last week comes amid a sharp rise in settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, where about half a million Israelis live among three million Palestinians. Settler attacks injured more than 220 Palestinians during the first five months of 2025, the highest rate in years, according to the United Nations. Settlers killed a Palestinian man on June 19, the U.N. says.
The violence in Kafr Malik set off a chain of confrontations between settlers and Israeli security forces in the area. Soldiers shot and wounded an Israeli youth on Friday, prompting hard-right Israelis to clash with troops outside a military base and burn down a nearby security installation on Sunday, the military said.
Tensions had been building in Kafr Malik for days before the attack. Residents had been grieving for a boy, Ammar Hamayel, 14, whom Israeli soldiers shot and killed in olive groves on the edge of the village two days previously, according to the Palestinian health ministry. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of the first houses to come under attack on Wednesday was that of the Afeefs, home to Afee Afeef, his wife, Nariman, their six children and other relatives.
As Taghreed Jodeh, Mr. Afeef’s sister-in-law, was pulling up in her car with her own children, her nieces and nephews ran out to greet them. By the time Ms. Jodeh had climbed the stairs, the youngsters’ laughter had turned to screams and her car was in flames, she said in an interview. She and her sister raced down to grab the children and barely made it back upstairs as the attackers hurled firebombs in their direction, she recalled.
The attackers threw another firebomb into the bedroom where Mr. Afeef’s newborn nephew was being lulled to sleep, scorching furniture and leaving blackened marks on the floor and walls, the family said. The damage was visible when Times reporters visited on Friday. The baby and his mother were unharmed.
Soon after, Israeli forces arrived and opened fired at Palestinians instead of stopping the rioters, according to multiple witnesses.
The soldiers killed three people, according to the Palestinian health ministry. Their relatives identified them as Murshid Hamayel, 35; Lutfi Baeirat, 18; and Muhammad Naji, 15. Nine others were injured, some gravely, according to the ministry.
In its statement, the Israeli military said clashes broke out during the assault by Israeli civilians and that Israelis and Palestinians had hurled stones at each other. The military said that Palestinians had opened fire at soldiers, prompting return fire and resulting in several dead and wounded. Five Israeli civilians were detained, the statement added.
More than a dozen Kafr Malik residents said that they had not heard shots before soldiers opened fire.
What provoked the initial violence is unclear.
Violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank is not unusual, and settlers had also just marked the second anniversary of a deadly shooting attack nearby in which four Israeli civilians were killed. Graffiti outside Mr. Afeef’s home seen on Friday included the Hebrew words for “vengeance” and “two years,” and partially named two victims of the shooting.
At the core of the violence lies the decades-old competition over land as Jewish settlers who consider the West Bank part of their biblical birthright take territory that much of the world views as the heartland of a future Palestinian state. Most countries consider all Israeli settlement in the occupied territory a violation of international law.
At least seven settler outposts have gone up around Kafr Malik in recent months, Najeh Rustom, the mayor, said. The newest are creeping closer to the village’s land, he added.
The outposts are illegal even by Israeli standards but the government turns a blind eye to many and has retroactively authorized others.
Amjad Shayeb, the deputy mayor, said settler violence was not random: “It’s meant to make people afraid to live in their homes, to step onto their own land.”
Another resident, Shireen Said, said attackers had thrown firebombs at her home and tried to break in. She said soldiers had provided cover for the assault.
The village outskirts, where families once grazed sheep, planted crops or took evening walks, have become dangerous, residents said.
“We don’t know how much more we will have to pay in blood,” Mr. Afeef said. “Still, we will not leave our homes.”
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.
Daniel Berehulak is a staff photographer for The Times based in Mexico City.
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