While the world is watching Gaza, violence fuels growing tensions in the occupied West Bank

By JULIA FRANKEL and JOSEPH KRAUSS
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — With the world’s attention focused on the war in Gaza, tensions have risen in the occupied West Bank, where 54 Palestinians were killed over the past week in clashes with Israeli troops, arrest raids and attacks by Jewish settlers. U.N. monitors said Saturday it was the deadliest week for Palestinians in the West Bank since at least 2005. Settler violence had already soared over the past year under Israel’s far-right government. But after Hamas’ deadly mass incursion into southern Israel, in which the militants killed over 1,300 people and captured scores more, the settler attacks have grown more frequent and deadly.