‘The West Bank is a no man’s land as far as settlers are concerned’

In recent months, settler attacks against Palestinians have become more frequent and severe. Ben Lynfield investigates what’s behind this disturbing development

DURING THE MOST serious incident in the recent surge of settler violence in the occupied West Bank, four-year-old Mohammed Hamamdi had his skull fractured by one of dozens of masked, stone-throwing settlers that assaulted his village of Mufaqra in the south Hebron hills on September 28.

This happened as he was asleep inside his home, his grandfather, Mahmoud Hamamdi told The Jewish Independent.

"The settlers did not miss a home in their attack," Hamamdi said. They destroyed cars, windows, solar panels, and water cisterns and threw stones at residents, he said.

Six Palestinians were wounded and several settlers were reportedly lightly hurt as Palestinians responded to the attack with throwing stones of their own.

"Of course we are afraid they will come back," Hamamdi said, adding that Mohammed's recovery was going slowly after treatment at Beersheba's Soroka Hospital and ongoing follow up visits with a physician in the Palestinian town of Yatta.

Palestinians said that Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene in response to the violence took the side of the settlers, firing tear gas at the village homes. An IDF spokesman said in response to a query by The Jewish Independent that troops did apply "enforcement" against the settlers and quoted the head of central command, Maj-Gen Yehuda Fuchs as saying "the IDF is committed to the security of all residents of the area". 

In an earlier incident of settler violence, on June 26, in the south Hebron hills village of Tuwani, a settler was filmed grabbing the gun of a soldier and firing it towards Palestinians. 

That same month a large number of settlers destroyed Palestinian property and pepper sprayed an elderly man who required hospitalisation in Ramallah, Palestinian witnesses told The Jewish Independent. 

Last weekend, on October 16, in another filmed incident, this time in Burin in the northern West Bank, around 30 masked settlers, one of them with white prayer fringes visible, threw stones at a house and set fields ablaze. 

The olive picking season, which started at the beginning of the month, has brought with it 17 documented incidents of settler violence, according to the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din. Three of the incidents involved attacks on Palestinian harvesters and five the burning or chopping down of trees.

"There is a sense of increase in numbers and also an increase in severity of incidents," Lior Amihai, executive director of Yesh Din told The Jewish Independent.

The trend has been getting much worse over the last few years according to figures which Haaretz, earlier this month, said it obtained from the "security establishment". They showed that in 2019 there were 363 instances of nationalist crime by Jews against Palestinians. This rose to 507 in 2020. In the first half of 2021 alone there were already 416 cases.

Despite the fact that violence  has long been an integral part of the settlement enterprise, what marks out recent violence is the heightened self-confidence of the settlers as exemplified by going after an entire village and their attempts to take over larger swaths of territory by establishing farms from which violence often emanates.

"The situation today is definitely the worst since the [2000-2005] second intifada," said Palestinian political analyst Nour Odeh, a former Palestinian Authority spokesperson. "The settlers are more violent, they go in deeper, they raid villages."

Odeh said that under the government of Naftali Bennett, former director of the Yesha settlement Council, as under previous governments of Benjamin Netanyahu, settlers are widely embraced by those in power and therefore, she said, correctly believe they can get away with anything.

Despite the police and army's ostensible mandate to protect all residents of the West Bank, critics on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides charge that in fact they enable settler violence. In the army's case, they say this is done by passively witnessing settler aggression or in some cases providing active support. 

In the police’s case, critics point to a severe dearth of arrests and indictments, meaning next to zero accountability for crimes by violent settlers.

The army and police deny favouring settlers. 

But the result is anarchy, with settlers not bound by any law, Israeli and Palestinian critics say. "They have impunity," according to  Khalil Shikaki, director of the Ramallah based Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research. 

"The Israeli army and police don't stop them. The West Bank is a no man's land as far as settlers are concerned. They can do whatever they want to do."

Amihai believes this situation is deliberate, reflecting what the state wants. "The violence is state- backed but not officially," he said. The violence with impunity is one of the state's tools for taking over Palestinian land in Area C, the part of the West Bank under full Israeli control which Prime Minister Bennett in the past has spoken of annexing, he stressed.

In response, Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said  that in fact the state works actively against settler violence. "It is absolutely not true that the state supports settler violence. On the contrary there are legal processes against those caught in such actions and no support whatsoever for this kind of behaviour."

Dror Sadot, spokesperson for the B'tselem human rights group, put it this way in remarks to The Jewish Independent. "The state enjoys the benefit of the violence of the settlers to take over land and resources." 

Referring to the Mufaqra attack, Sadot said "I can't say someone said, ‘let's send the settlers in’ but the fact that Israel does nothing to punish and soldiers didn't stop it is part of the strategy."

Yesh Din data points to a paucity of indictments for settler crimes against Palestinians. Through testimonies it received, the group verified 540 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in 2018-2021. In 238 of the cases, Palestinians filed complaints, with others reluctant to do so apparently because they lack faith in the Israeli system. 

There have only been 12 indictments out of all the cases, according to Yesh Din. The group did not have figures on how many of the indictments turned into convictions, Amihai said.

A police statement in response to a query by The Jewish Independent said all cases are "professionally" investigated and that the police apply the law equally to all residents. The police did not answer a query on what difficulties they face pursuing investigations against settlers.

The IDF said in response to a query by The Jewish Independent: "IDF soldiers and other security forces are constantly working to maintain law and order and to prevent violations by both Palestinians and Israelis." 

Veteran settler leader Daniella Weiss denied that either the government or settlers believe violence is a way to force Palestinians out of Area C. "We are not trying to clear the Palestinians from area C. It's not practical; it's a non -issue and the question is invalid."

But back in Mufaqra, the Palestinians are not sleeping at night. "We are afraid if we go to sleep the settlers will carry out a Sabra and Shatilla," Hamamdi said, referring to the 1982 Beirut massacre by Israeli-backed Christian militiamen.

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Settlers light fires, throw rocks towards Palestinian home during clashes (Times of Israel)
Police arrest two settlers accused of attacking soldiers, Palestinian in West Bank (Times of Israel)
Israel's top court delays settler evacuation until after Jewish farming sabbatical (Haaretz)
Israeli officer's promotion delayed after assaulting activists, Palestinians (Haaretz)

Photo: Settlers from Yitzhar during clashes with Palestinians near Nablus, January 14, 2014 (Nasser Ishtayeh/AP)