Palestinian activists in the flashpoint city of Hebron have started patrols to prevent attacks by settlers after Israel’s widely criticised expulsion of an international observer mission.

The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was first established more than two decades ago after a far-right Jewish extremist murdered 29 Muslims at a mosque in the city.

TIPH has since monitored and documented altercations in the West Bank city, in particular between Palestinians, the Israeli army and members of a several hundred-strong ultranationalist settler movement who live in heavily fortified districts.

The body’s forces, a team of 64 observers from Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey, had escorted Palestinian children who needed to walk past settler areas to get to school.

“Their absence is a big gap,” said Issa Amro, a local activist leader who set up the civilian patrol of 18 volunteers, all wearing blue uniforms with the word “observer” written in English, Arabic and Hebrew. “We escort kids to schools, we try to document human rights violations using video cameras … we try to protect Palestinian homes,” he said.

As soon as he began a week ago, Amro’s mission drew anger from settlers. He published a video of a woman slapping him and other volunteers being pushed around.

More than 200,000 Palestinians live in Hebron, the occupied West Bank’s largest city. But the presence of settlers has effectively shut down local life in the main souk as army checkpoints cut off the area.

Central to the volatility is Hebron’s leading holy site, which Jews call the Tomb of the Patriarchs while Muslims refer to it as the Ibrahimi mosque, after the patriarch Abraham, a key figure for both faiths.

Last month, Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the mission’s mandate would not be renewed, saying Israel would not “allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us”.

The move was interpreted as a nod to domestic far-right voters as Netanyahu seeks re-election in April. TIPH has been the focus of controversy in Israel recently after one of its observers was deported for slapping an Israeli child and another was filmed puncturing the tyres of a settler’s vehicle.

The ejection of the observers drew widespread international condemnation. In a joint statement, TIPH member countries said it undermined one of the few established mechanisms for conflict resolution between Israelis and Palestinians. The EU said it risked further deteriorating the already fragile situation on the ground.

Chris Eijkemans, the local representative for Oxfam, said the departure was “a dangerous green light for more violence”.

Most world powers consider settlements to be illegal under international law, which forbids the transfer of civilians into occupied land. Settler violence against Palestinians living in the West Bank has been rising since the beginning of 2017, according to the UN. Incidents often follow attacks by Palestinians against Israelis.

According to the UN’s office in the occupied Palestinian territories, a recent household survey conducted in one part of Hebron indicated that almost 70% of Palestinian families had been exposed to settler violence and harassment in the past three years.

While TIPH observers were never authorised to interfere in incidents or disputes, they patrolled seven days a week and their mandate intended their presence to give “a feeling of security to the Palestinians of Hebron”.

Amro says his volunteers are not as well trained as the TIPH, but more importantly, they do not have diplomatic backing. While Israeli soldiers could not force TIPH observers away from any areas of Hebron, his group has been banned from parts of the city after the army declared it a closed military zone.

After the TIPH observers packed up, he said: “The soldiers are acting differently, the settlers are acting differently.”