Israel claimed that Ahed Tamimi was arrested on "suspicion of inciting violence and terrorist activities" in the Nabi Saleh town near Ramallah, an army spokesman told AFP.

Tamimi was transferred to the Israeli security forces for further questioning.

The activist's mother, Nariman Tamimi, said that her husband, Bassem Tamimi, was arrested on 20 October, and since then there has been no news about his whereabouts.

In 2015, Tamimi, then 14, made international news after a picture of her biting the arms of an Israeli soldier to prevent him from arresting her little brother gained global attention.

Tamimi was arrested in 2017 and held for eight months for slapping two Israeli soldiers in the courtyard of her family home in the West Bank as she asked them to leave.

She has become an icon of the Palestinian cause and a large portrait of her has been painted on the Israeli separation wall with the West Bank in Bethlehem near Jerusalem.

West Bank: Tinderbox
 

Since 7 October, Israel has carried out a sustained crackdown campaign in the West Bank in tandem with its war on the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli army raided tens of towns, villages, and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank, suppressed demonstrations, and arrested and jailed hundreds, which fueled tensions and anger in the territory.

Since the beginning of the war, the Israeli army and settlers killed more than 150 Palestinians in various parts of the West Bank, mainly youth and children, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

Israel has also arrested more than 2,200 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October, including displaced workers from the strip who were seeking refuge in the occupied territory.

Demonstrators have rallied daily to protest against the crimes being perpetrated by the Israeli forces against Palestinians in Gaza.

On the first of November, a widespread strike encompassing all the occupied West Bank cities, including Jerusalem, was declared in protest of the ongoing Israeli brutal aggression against the Palestinian people in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, WAFA said.

The UN rights office has described the situation in West Bank as "alarming," saying that armed Israeli settler militias have been acting in collaboration with Israeli forces, according to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA).

"The situation in the occupied West Bank, including east Jerusalem, is alarming and urgent," said Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).

More than 820 Palestinians in West Bank have been displaced amid terrorist settlers violence and increased movement restrictions since the start of the war, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) said.

On 17 October, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) issued a press release on the most important socio-economic indicators of the impact of Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Those indicators included the difficult economic situation and high unemployment rates in both the West Bank, with an estimated population of 3.19 million, and the strip, where over 2 million Palestinians live.

The Palestinian death toll continues to climb in Gaza without respite, fueling a surge in international outrage against what is widely perceived as Israel's attacks that amount to crimes.

Palestinian family members bid farewell to 22-year-old Mahmud al-Atrash, killed by Israeli security forces during a raid in village of Halhoul, north of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on November 6, 2023. AFP