Palestine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has released a statement condemning the attack in the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta area — which it said was “carried out under the protection and supervision” of Israeli forces — and calling for international action, Al Jazeera reports.

“Settlers brutally assaulted several Palestinian shepherds in an attempt to expel them and forcibly depopulate the entire area of its Palestinian residents. This represents one of the most egregious forms of ethnic cleansing targeting Palestinians,” it said.

The ministry said the purpose of such attacks is to “annex this land as a strategic reserve for colonial settlement expansion, deliberately destroying any prospects for the realisation of a Palestinian state”.

“The Ministry views the ongoing brutality against our people in Gaza, Massafer Yatta, the northern West Bank, and the Jordan Valley as an escalated colonial campaign of racial persecution, genocide, forced displacement, and annexation,” it continued.