The incident highlights the lack of law and order in parts of the occupied territory where Israelis associated with the settler movement have increasingly attacked Palestinians without consequences.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that 22 new settlements will be established in the West Bank.

The desert guest house is accessible via a modern bypass built predominantly on expropriated Palestinian land and which was mostly empty when The Irish Times drove along it, accompanied by Dror Etkes, an Israeli expert on settlements and land policy in the West Bank and head of the NGO Kerem Navot.