RAMALLAH, West Bank — On July 31, Friday preachers in the West Bank focused their sermons on societal violence, assaults and thefts from a religious perspective in response to a request made by the Palestinian police. This came as part of an awareness campaign for citizens launched by the police following the month of Ramadan to confront the increase of violence in Palestinian society.

Brawls among Palestinians in the West Bank have significantly increased in an unprecedented way, causing casualties and property damage and prompting the authorities, as well as political and social leaders, to search for reasons for this growing phenomenon and how to control it.

A serious altercation took place July 13 in the town of Beit Jala, when a citizen stabbed to death another Palestinian who refused to show him the footage from his store’s surveillance camera without the presence of the police. The aggressor had demanded to see the footage after his car went missing from in front of the victim’s store. After the slaying, the victim's family burned dozens of homes and shops belonging to the culprit’s relatives, police said. A woman died after she jumped from her balcony to escape the fire. Three days later, two citizens in the town of Badu northwest of Jerusalem were also shot and killed during a family feud.

Lt. Col. Louay Zreikat, spokesman for the West Bank police, told Al-Monitor that “3,650 brawls have been recorded since the beginning of the year, killing 16 civilians, and 974 fights have killed five people and wounded 200 others during just the month of Ramadan. Eleven suicides were recorded since the beginning of the year. … The causes of the brawls are silly, ranging from disputes over land boundaries, simple financial disputes, verbal altercations that develop into larger fights and quarrels among children that develop into fights between the parents. … Palestinian society is a tribal society, and therefore families get fully emerged in the quarrels in which a family member is involved.”