The escalation of violence taking place in the occupied West Bank is part of an agenda of some Israeli officials “to permanently consolidate” Israel’s rule over the Palestinian territory, Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East analyst and co-editor of the online publication Jadaliyya, told Al Jazeera.

“Some of these groups who are represented within the coalition have an apocalyptic agenda. In other words, from their points of view, the more escalation the better,” Rabbani said in an interview with the news outlet.

“They are out to deliberately provoke the Palestinians to seek to create as much conflict as possible,” he said.

“They are even out to provoke the security forces of the Palestinian Authority, because in their view, should they become involved in a conflict, that would then give Israel a pretext to simply eliminate the Palestinian Authority.”