It was a typical Friday afternoon when Ibrahim Kharoubi led a popular local hiking group on a trip from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho. However, midway through the hike they saw a group of hooded figures coming down from the hilltop in front of them.

As the group got closer, the hikers could make out the wooden clubs in their hands and M16’s strapped around them. It was in that moment when it dawned on them that they were in real danger.

Hundreds of Israeli settlers set out across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday to take part in an unprecedented effort to erect a number of illegal settlement outposts in the territory. Led by Daniella Weiss, a leader of the religious-Zionist and settler movements and an advocate of an “Arab-free” Jewish state, the plans started as a goal of establishing “10 Evyatars” – named after the Evyatar outpost in Beita, what the group considers to be one of its most successful settlement projects in years. Although technically illegal under Israeli law, the new campaign appears to have tacit government support, and is bringing a new wave of violence against Palestinians along with it.

A photo of an armed Israeli soldier, surrounded by dozens of his fellow soldiers, standing on the back of a Palestinian man as he lie face down in the ground went viral on Palestinian social media this week.

The photo was taken in the midst of a brutal Israeli crackdown on activists as they attempted to escort a group of Palestinian farmers to their land in order to harvest their olive trees in the al-Ras area west of Salfit, in the northern occupied West Bank.