Escalating Fear as Israeli Forces and Settlers Target West Bank Mosques

Palestinians are facing mounting fear and escalating violence as Israeli forces and settlers increasingly target mosques across the occupied West Bank.

In Madama village near Nablus, Naim Ahmed Faraj and dozens of worshippers were attending evening prayers when Israeli forces threw tear gas canisters inside their mosque. Faraj, 66, who suffers from heart and joint ailments, collapsed from suffocation. His son, Mohammed Naim, stated that his father fell semiconscious and was rushed home by car in the absence of available ambulances. "The mosque is supposed to be a safe haven where people can pray without being attacked," Naim told Al Jazeera, expressing the deep anxiety worshippers now feel amid the rising violence.

Palestinian sources attribute these daily raids to extremist government ministers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, who have allegedly emboldened settlers and military forces. Naim described his village as an isolated island surrounded by settlements, bypass roads, and the military, compounded by the ongoing expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

With more than 750,000 settlers living in illegal settlements throughout the territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli leaders continue to oppose a sovereign Palestinian state. Tensions have further intensified ahead of next month's general elections, highlighted by far-right Israeli Knesset member Zvi Sukkot storming Madama village last week to smash a Palestinian memorial with a sledgehammer.

Hours after the Madama raid, settlers launched an arson attack on the Imad al-Din Zanki mosque in Bazariya, pouring flammable liquids on the ground floor and igniting the building. Taysir Safarini, former head of the Bazariya village council, described neighbours waking to the flames and attempting to extinguish the fire before civil defence crews arrived. Attackers also sprayed Hebrew graffiti on the walls, including death threats against Arabs and a mocking message directed at United States ambassador to Israel reading: "Huckabee, greetings from the terrorists." Mike Huckabee has previously voiced support for Israeli settlements while calling settlers "terrorists".

The Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's office warned that such violations risk sparking a catastrophic religious war. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Ministry of Religious Affairs reported that at least 13 mosques have been vandalised or burned this year, alongside 26 incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and 155 bans on the call to prayer at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron.

According to the United Nations, at least 76 Palestinians, including 18 children, have been killed in the territory this year, with approximately 3,800 people displaced and more than 1,450 settler attacks recorded. The Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission estimates total attacks exceed 6,000, leaving families like Naim's to restrict their daily movements out of constant fear.