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       How a Campaign of Extremist Violence Is Pushing the West Bank to the Brink

       Israeli settlers and Palestinians have been locked in a cycle of bloodshed for decades. But extremist settler attacks could send the conflict out of control.

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       Mourners bury the body of Bilal Muhammad Saleh, a Palestinian man killed by a settler in the West Bank last Saturday. Credit...Alaa Badarneh/EPA, via Shutterstock

       By Jeffrey Gettleman, Rami Nazzal and Adam Sella

       This story was reported from the West Bank and Israel.

       Nov. 2, 2023Updated 1:10 p.m. ET

       This past Saturday morning, Bilal Mohammad Saleh, a Palestinian sidewalk vendor of sage and thyme, went out with his family to pick olives.

       It’s olive harvesting season in the West Bank and Mr. Saleh was helping pluck the fruit from the gnarled trees that his family has owned for generations.

       Then, four armed Jewish settlers showed up, witnesses said. They started yelling, and the olive pickers stopped what they were doing and began to run.

       But Mr. Saleh forgot his phone.

       “I’ll be right back,” he told his wife.

       Two gunshots rang out, and in an instant, Mr. Saleh, who was known for his love of fresh leaves and being a fun dad, was face down in the olive grove, dead.

       While the world’s attention has fallen on Gaza, violence in the West Bank, a much bigger and more complex Palestinian-majority area, is hitting its highest levels in years.

       Some of the specific incidents, like the killing in the olive grove, reflect a longstanding problem in the West Bank that has gotten much worse since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks: Heavily armed settler extremists have operated with impunity for years, many Palestinians say, and now their assaults are becoming bolder, deadlier and nonstop.

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