SAFA-  An Israeli soldier has posted a photograph showing two female soldiers smiling at the camera while a young Palestinian man sits on the ground blindfolded, with his hands bound behind his back, a scene that has been repeatedly repeated in recent years.

The image comes amid a sharp increase in the number of Palestinians detained since the start of Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip. According to Palestinian prisoner affairs institutions, more than 9,600 Palestinians are currently held in Israeli prisons, including 350 children and 99 women. The figure also includes more than 3,500 administrative detainees imprisoned without charge or trial.

The photograph also emerges against a backdrop of escalating violence in the occupied West Bank, where settler attacks on Palestinians and their property have intensified in recent weeks. Palestinian and international human rights organizations report that Israeli occupation forces are providing protection to settlers and, in some cases, participating in the attacks.

According to the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Israeli settlers carried out 3,488 attacks against Palestinians and their property during the first half of 2026. The incidents included assaults on civilians, damage to homes and farmland, the establishment of new settlement outposts, and preventing Palestinian farmers from accessing their agricultural land.

Some 750,000 Israeli settlers live in 156 settlements and some 360 settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, Palestinian figures show. Palestinian authorities say settlement expansion and settler violence are contributing to the forced displacement of Palestinian communities across the occupied territory.