Attacks by Israeli settlers on the illegally occupied West Bank are not new. They occur regularly, causing extensive damage to the Palestinian people and their land, and proving fatal in far too many instances. More than 1,000 attacks across the West Bank this year have involved settlers, according to the UN.

And yet, most often, apart from mild international condemnation, there is no reckoning or accountability for Israel’s sponsorship of such terror.

In recent weeks, since the ceasefire was announced in Gaza, these routine damnable acts of violence have increased in frequency, with few arrests. This is the case even as Israeli troops was last week instructed by a military commander in the West Bank to “act as much as possible” to prevent violence by settlers. More often than not, however, over decades, there has been too strong a whiff of enablement by the Israeli army and the state that stems from country’s perceived claim on the land.

Israeli military disperses Palestinian anti-settler protest in West Bank 01:02

Just last week, masked settlers burnt Palestinian villages, vandalised a mosque, set fire to it, and also set cars ablaze. An Israeli organisation that monitors settlements and violence in the West Bank recognised the heinousness of the situation. Lior Amihai, executive director of Peace Now, said “settler terror is breaking records” currently.

According to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there were 260 attacks in October, the highest since OCHA began keeping a record of such incidents – implying an average of eight incidents a day. Violent settlers haven’t shied away from wielding sticks to bludgeon Palestinians and slingshots to attack farmers harvesting olives, not sparing even the women.

This rising lawlessness, whateve