Charges will be filed against a teenager suspected of partaking in a large-scale arson attack this month on Palestinian factories and farmland in the West Bank, law enforcement announced Saturday night.
It marked the first charges filed against one of the suspected assailants in the raid on November 11, which saw dozens of settlers set fire to a factory and surrounding agricultural lands near the villages of Bayt Lid and Dayr Sharaf, in the northern West Bank.
The defendant, a minor who was nabbed at the scene by security forces, was one of four people who were arrested during the attack. A prosecutor’s statement was filed against him on Saturday, police said, and he was set to be charged Sunday by Central District prosecutors.
Four Palestinians were injured in the attack, and settlers later set their sights on the troops, attacking soldiers who were dispatched to the scene, the IDF said at the time.
According to the police’s statement, “more than 50 indictments have been filed against individuals involved in severe violent incidents in Judea and Samaria” since the start of the year.
However, enforcement against settler violence under National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has plummeted on the whole over the past three years, according to a recent Channel 12 report, with a 73% drop in the number of investigations opened into settler violence since 2023.
TVNL Comment: Judea and Samaria are names given to this region which has been under illegal Israeli occupation since 1967.
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