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While the focus is on Gaza, a tragic story covering only a small subset of the disgusting acts that some Palestinians are having to endure in the West Bank from Israeli settlers.

"To all the rats in the sewers of Qusra village, we are waiting for you and we will not mourn you," the text said.

"The day of revenge is coming."

Qusra was Wadi's village, in the northern part of the West Bank near Nablus. The funeral that day was for four Palestinians from the village. Three had been killed the previous day - Wednesday 11 October - after Israeli settlers entered Qusra and attacked a Palestinian family home. The fourth was shot dead in clashes with Israeli soldiers that followed.

According to the UN's humanitarian office, the week that followed Hamas's murderous attack was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since it began reporting fatalities in 2005, with at least 75 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military or settlers, and incidents of settler violence up from an average of three a day to eight.

Palestinian residents of the West Bank say that while the world's attention is drawn to the unfolding disaster in Gaza, Israeli settlers are taking advantage by entering villages and expelling, and even killing, Palestinian civilians.

In at least three cases, according to video footage or eyewitness testimony from villagers, the settlers have been wearing military uniforms or accompanied by the Israeli military in their attacks.

The first three men who died in Qusra had gone to defend a family in a house on the outskirts of the village, after settlers approached the house and began throwing rocks at it, several residents told the BBC.

They say the settlers then opened fire at the Palestinian neighbours who came to assist, killing three young men - Hasan Abu Sorour, 16, Obayda Abu Sorour, 17, and Musab Abu Reda, 25 - and gravely wounding several others. Moath Odeh, aged 21, was killed later in clashes with soldiers.

Among the wounded were a father and his six-year-old daughter, who lived at the house, who were shot in the face and in the abdomen respectively, according to two people who received the dead and wounded at a nearby medical clinic.

16, 17 and 6-years old. These are children.

There had already been a significant increase in violence by Israeli settlers this year, even before the Hamas attack, according to UN data, with more than 100 incidents reported each month and about 400 people driven from their land between January and August.

Israeli human rights organisation B'Tselem told the BBC that since the attack, it had documented "a concerted and organised effort by settlers to use the fact that the entire international and local attention is focused on Gaza and the north of Israel to try to seize land in the West Bank".

Partial data compiled by B'Tselem, covering the first six days after the Hamas attack, recorded at least 46 separate incidents in which it said settlers threatened, physically attacked or damaged the property of Palestinians in the West Bank.

In one of the most shocking incidents caught on film in the past week, an Israeli settler entered a Palestinian village called Al-Tuwani near Hebron and shot an unarmed Palestinian resident in the stomach at point blank range, while an Israeli soldier appeared to look on.

The incident began when two armed settlers, accompanied by a soldier, attacked a home on the outskirts of the village, according to three residents including the homeowner.

"Three Israelis came to my house, they were armed, and one was wearing the uniform of the army," said Musab Rabai, 36.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67173344