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

TURMUS AYYA, Ramallah, Sept 5 (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met on Saturday with Palestinians, including the families of U.S. 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.

He said that the town's residents would be asking the ambassador to help secure their safety and security. About 80% of the town's roughly 3,000 residents were Palestinian Americans, he said.

Huckabee, a Baptist minister and longtime supporter of Israeli settlements, has called for violent settlers to be prosecuted, while saying he believes their actions represent a minority of the wider settler community, which numbers around 750,000. Israeli settlers accused of carrying out attacks in the West Bank targeting Palestinians are rarely prosecuted.

"We are hoping that (the ambassador) will do something for us regarding these lawless settlers," Turmus Ayya resident Sameer Hazama said ahead of the meeting with the ambassador.

Huckabee visited Taybeh, one of the only Christian villages remaining in the West Bank, in June 2025 after a church there was vandalised. Huckabee said at the time that the desecration of a place of worship was an act of terror and a crime.

Netanyahu's government has also overseen an expansion of settlements across the West Bank, further entrenching Israeli control over territory that Palestinians seek for a future state.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, with the United Nations and most countries deeming the territory to be occupied. Israel's government says that the land is disputed, not occupied.

Huckabee refers to the West Bank by its biblical name, Judea and Samaria, a term used by the Israeli government but not adopted by the U.S. government. He has visited Shiloh, a settlement near Turmus Ayya, at least twice since 2025.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta, writing by Alexander Cornwell; Editing by Sharon Singleton)