US ambassador visits Palestinian town amid rise in West Bank settler violence

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met on Saturday (Sep 5) with Palestinians, including the families of US citizens killed by Israeli settlers, in a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank that has been the target of repeated settler attacks.



Settler violence in the West Bank has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, the most right-wing in Israel's history, took office in late 2022.



Several settlements have been established around Turmus Ayya, the Palestinian town near Ramallah that Huckabee was visiting on Saturday. Its residents say that harassment by militant Israeli settlers is common and that they are unable to stop them from entering the town and damaging their homes.



"We have many issues that we will address," Nawwaf Zaghoul, the town's mayor, told reporters ahead of the meeting, describing what he said were constant attacks by settlers.