Settler outposts spread among West Bank villages and fuel fear of more attacks

TURMUS AYYA, West Bank (AP) — The fear is palpable in . It’s clear in how farmers gather their harvests quickly, how they scan the valley for movement, how they dare not stray past certain roads. At any time, they say, armed Israeli settlers could descend.

“In a matter of minutes, they get on their phones. They gather themselves, and they surprise you,” said Yasser Alkam, a Palestinian-American lawyer and farmer from the village of . “They hide between the trees. They ambush people and beat them up severely.”