An AFP journalist who arrived at the scene saw several burned-out cars and the sooty facade of a five-story building where the cars were parked outside.
Rami Omar, head of local civil defense, reports that an alarm was received at half past four on Monday morning about Israeli settlers vandalizing the area.
An Israeli security source says that a total of 19 vehicles were burned by the settlers.
Ihab al-Zabin, who lives in the damaged building, says he saw about ten people he identified as settlers "pouring liquids on vehicles in front of the building and then setting them on fire", and how they afterwards ran away towards the nearby Israeli settlement of Beit El.
I screamed from my apartment and at that moment they ran away, he says.
When I went down with my neighbors to put out the fire, the settlers shot at us.
Laila Ghannam, governor of Ramallah and al-Bireh, says that "a massacre could have occurred in this building", which according to its inhabitants housed more than 60 people.
Violence on the West Bank has escalated since Hamas' attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, triggered the war in Gaza.
The US is urging Israel to take action against settler violence on the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The US is deeply concerned about these and other recent reports of increasing extremist violence from settlers on the West Bank, says Matthew Miller, spokesperson for the US Department of State.
The incident is being investigated by Israeli police.
