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P:Palestinians in Turmusaya return from their fields after their tillage was disrupted by settlers, then shut down by the IDF (Municipality of Turmusaya)
Published: 7 May 2026
Last updated: 8 May 2026
Turmusaya, West Bank
Settler violence in the West Bank has been widely characterised as the actions of a fringe group of extremists. However, Palestinians in the area say their experience is that the IDF supports and covers for the actions of the settlers.
For residents of Turmusaya, a well-off village north of Ramallah caught up in the worst wave of settler violence since 1967, the involvement of the IDF was evident this week.
On Monday the IDF appeared to capitulate to extremist settlers by reneging on a commitment to safeguard a crucial agricultural activity. On Tuesday night, it imposed collective punishment on the entire town, locking down all residents on the grounds that stonethrowers had fled into the village. It unlatched the gate Wednesday afternoon, but did not remove earthen barriers, residents said.
“The army caved in to extremist settlers,” said Yaser Alkam, foreign relations director for the Turmusaya municipality. “The army and settlers are one and the same. That distinction is no longer alive in the West Bank.”
The IDF strongly rejects this view. It says it defends all residents of the West Bank and that soldiers have orders to act against anyone harming Palestinian civilians, including by detaining them until police arrive.
The settlers are in control. It seems that the settlers give orders to the army.
Turmusaya resident
Monday’s incident began when settlers intervened in a tillage activity, which had been previously approved by the IDF and was being protected by soldiers. About 30 far-right settlers confronted Palestinian landowners and tractor drivers who were tilling the soil, said Alkam, who witnessed the incident. “A group of settlers show up and say, ‘Leave - we are going to burn your tractors’, he said.
Fearing for their safety, tractor drivers withdrew to behind a military jeep and a soldier made calls. “Then a captain arrives and says it’s a closed zone, everybody leave,” Alkam said. “We were kicked out because some settlers objected to our being on our own land.”
The IDF said it had shut down the tillage and declared the area a closed military zone after the "altercation" between Palestinians and settlers.
"[Soldiers were present to] secure the tillage activity that was coordinated with the IDF and to protect civilians in the area. During the tillage activity, Israeli civilians arrived in the area and a verbal altercation began with the Palestinians at the scene. IDF soldiers operated to disperse the gathering and restore order to the area.
“It was decided to temporarily pause the tillage activity until another date is set,” the IDF spokesperson said.
Settlers mobilise against Palestinian agriculture
Settlers from the area of Shilo settlement raised an alarm to thwart the tillage activity on Sunday evening.
“Residents of Shilo, this is the time to wake up and defend our homes and land. Under the guise of innocent [farming] the [army’s] coordination office intends to allow Arabs to enter,” read a message on social media.
Elisha Yered, an influential extremist settler, forwarded the call to action on his WhatsApp network with an addition. “There is no middle ground. It is either expulsion of the enemy or that we live with a bomb next to us in the form of a Palestinian terror state.”
Settlers claimed victory after they succeeded in stopping the “scandalous” tillage and wrote on Facebook that they had thwarted the Palestinians from “gathering intelligence” to attack Shilo in a kind of October 7 style assault.
Palestinians said the stoppage of the tillage showed the IDF is protecting settler extremism. “The settlers are in control,” commented one resident, who asked for anonymity because he fears settler reprisal. “It seems that the settlers give orders to the army. As for the army, they treat us worse than animals.”
Economic and psychological costs
The inability of the landowners to turn the soil over, something they say is essential for subsequent harvesting could cost them dearly in lost revenue, with additional and much higher losses for not being able to safely access privately owned trees outside the area the army promised to protect.
Alkam said in a best case it will take months to reschedule and if it does come through “the same thing will happen again.”
He added that the IDF had barred the entry of many landowners, allowing access to only five and that when they entered the groves they found that a large number of trees had been bulldozed.
An olive tree found bulldozed on Palestinian land (Municipality of Turmusaya)
Beyond the financial toll there is the psychological cost of sensing you have no protection even if you are in a wealthy community like Turmusaya, whose houses are mostly large red-roofed villas, some of them sporting American flags in a reminder that most people here are American citizens. That doesn’t stop settlers from scrawling graffiti vowing “revenge” on walls.
Settler violence condemned, army complicity ignored
Across the West Bank, settler violence reached a 20-year high in March, according to the tally of the UN Office of the Coordinator of Humanitarian Affairs. Thirteen Palestinians have been killed during settler incursions since March 1.
The violence has elicited an unprecedented degree of coverage in much of the Israeli media, which dubs it “Jewish Terror”. But few are zooming in on the army. Under international law, the IDF is required to protect the civilian population and its property.
In 2023, Turmusaya was the victim of what was widely described as a pogrom, with many houses set on fire by settlers and a young man killed by Israeli security forces, according to rights group B’tselem.
Residents say this kind of behaviour is now commonplace, with settlers throwing stones, damaging cars or bulldozing trees.
On April 18 this year, there was an incursion by about 40 hooded settlers, one resident reported. “They broke the windows of my brother’s house, set fire to a car, set fire to a home." He said he announced over the mosque loudspeaker that, “settlers are coming, defend your land”. The same message also went out on Whatsapp. When a large number of Palestinians came out into the street, the settlers withdrew, he said.
As for the army, it arrived an hour after he reported the incursion to the District Coordinating Office, which maintains contact with the IDF. “The army came after it was over,” he said. The Jewish Independent did not receive a response requested from the IDF over the April 18 incident.
Army of one mind with settlers
Doron Meinrath, a former army colonel turned antioccupation activist with the group, Looking the Occupation in the Eye, says Palestinians are mistaken if they think the IDF takes orders from settlers. “It’s not that the settlers give them orders, it’s that the army is of the same mind as the settlers - with the same ideology and the same goals to choke the Palestinians and not let them live as part of a vision that they will leave in the end. In the first stage it’s to choke them and not allow them to make a living.”
Brigadier General (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, director of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, disputes that the IDF is interested in making Palestinians leave. “It’s not right. It could be part of a policy of certain groups among settlers, but it’s not a policy or goal of the IDF. The job of the IDF is to defend the entire population, not just Jews, also Palestinians. Anyone who lives there and is observing the law deserves protection, including owners of land.”
He notes that the IDF is criticised by extremist settlers as well as Palestinians “so it seems that it’s doing the right things.”
Ben Lynfield covered Israeli and Palestinian politics for The Independent and served as Middle Eastern affairs correspondent at The Jerusalem Post. He writes for publications in the region and has contributed to the Christian Science Monitor, Foreign Policy and the New Statesman.
In weapons of mass destruction exchange Jewish and Arabs close together with deep underground shelters below strengthened mobile shelters is essential .
There a few attacks on Jerusalem .
Eventually a International Protective Area will be needed for the West Bank -Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem if not the whole of Israel -Palestine with maximal survivability for Jewish People Arabic People and Internationals.
Comments1
Mark Ian10 May at 02:05 am
In weapons of mass destruction exchange Jewish and Arabs close together with deep underground shelters below strengthened mobile shelters is essential .
There a few attacks on Jerusalem .
Eventually a International Protective Area will be needed for the West Bank -Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem if not the whole of Israel -Palestine with maximal survivability for Jewish People Arabic People and Internationals.