What is the reward for Palestinian who accept their second class status in the West Bank and are not violent? Humiliation and subjugation.
West Bank Palestinianslive in fear of
settler attacks
Israel’s war on Hamas in Gaza has violent repercussions in
the occupied territory
Empty streets in Huwara, a Palestinian town where fear of settler violence has left it looking like a ghost town © Ayman Oghanna /FT
Gunfights erupt every few hours, and the Israeli military has had to rely on air support for the first
time in years to buttress its ground incursions in refugee camps, where an active black market for
weapons has gone into overdrive, according to one arms smuggler.
Israel launched an aerial and ground offensive into Gaza in response to Hamas’s devastating
October 7 attack on Israeli towns and military posts, which Israeli officials say killed 1,400 people.
It was the deadliest attack in Israel’s history and traumatised and enraged the nation. More than
8,800 people have been killed in the bombardment of Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas,
according to Palestinian officials.
At least 125 Palestinians have also been killed in the West Bank by the Israeli army and armed
settlers in the weeks since, according to data from local health authorities and the UN. Nearly
1,000 Palestinians have been forced from their villages by armed settlers, mostly in a wide swath of
land dubbed Area C where the Israeli army has direct authority.
The tightened restrictions have triggered large protests, drawing several thousand people. But the
visible presence of Israeli soldiers has kept many at home out of fear.
“They’ve put us in a pressure cooker and lit a fire under us,” said Jamal, 28, who lost his job as a
pharmacist in Jerusalem because he has been unable to leave the West Bank.
At the same time, armed settlers have stepped up their assaults on Palestinians, especially those in
remote villages. The EU on Wednesday referred to these assaults as “settler terrorism”, asking
Israel to rein them in.
UN data shows that assaults have doubled since the Hamas attack, and human rights groups such
as Israel’s Yesh Din have documented a rise in cases where Israeli soldiers — including settlers who
have been called up for reserve duty — either stood by, or have intervened only to aid the settlers.
“The settlers already know they have impunity as civilians, now they have it as soldiers too,” said
Yahav Erez, the international advocacy co-ordinator at Yesh Din, noting how very few cases of
settler or soldier violence were investigated, let alone prosecuted.
Yesh Din said it could identify one single Israeli who had been questioned for attacks on
Palestinians — an arrest that came the day after US president Joe Biden said extremist settlers
“have to be held to account”.
Meanwhile, 1,512 Palestinians have been arrested since October 7, according to prisons data given
to Hamoked, an Israeli nongovernment organisation. More than 700 are being held without
charges.
The settlers gleefully share videos of assaults on Telegram channels with tens of thousands of
subscribers. Abu Hassan’s beating was photographed by his attackers, and in another video from
Hebron this week, men in Israeli military uniforms were heard laughing as they beat, bound and
blindfolded Palestinian men, several of them stripped naked.
As one of them bent over to kick a Palestinian, he could be seen wearing the broad knitted kippa
favoured by religious nationalist settlers. The Israeli military said that “the conduct of the force
that emerges from the footage is deplorable and does not comply with the army’s orders”, and that
it was investigating the incident.
Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Richard Hecht did not respond to detailed queries seeking
comment on several other incidents. He had earlier stressed that the “IDF is the sovereign in Judea
and Samaria”, using the Israeli expression for the occupied West Bank. As sovereign, the IDF is
obliged by international and Israeli law to protect civilians, including Palestinians.
The IDF has also reported several violent incidents against settlers, including stabbings, car
ramming and attacks, including an IED, on Israeli soldiers and border police in their incursions
into Palestinian cities. In the occupied West Bank, one Israeli soldier has been killed since October
7.
On Thursday, an Israeli man driving in the West Bank was shot and
killed by an unidentified gunman, police said. Three Palestinians were
shot and killed by the IDF in separate locations in the West Bank, said
local health officials.
The closures and restrictions have further depressed the West Bank’s economy. On the highway to
Nablus, the normally vibrant market town of Huwara is deserted, its streets taken over by stray
dogs and Israeli soldiers. On the walls, posters have been plastered with a picture of a lion, quoting
Talmudic scripture that Israelis have long used to justify pre-emptive killing: “Rise Up and Kill
First”.
Moves by Israel’s far-right finance minister, a settler himself, to stop the transfer of about $500mn
to the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank, will deliver a further economic hit.
Israel collects the money from customs and other taxes on behalf of the PA, which uses the funds to
pay salaries and run its limited administration.
“We [will not] transfer money to this despicable enemy,” Bezalel Smotrich said, referring to the PA,
a rival to Hamas.
Cutting funds to the PA, choking the economy and the forced displacement of Palestinians, in
addition to settlers stopping Palestinians from the annual olive harvest in October, creates an
explosive situation in the West Bank, warn international observers and Palestinians.
“The West Bank is not going to remain calm at all — they are dividing us between the cities, the
refugee camps and the villages,” said Jamal Tirawi, a one-time militant convicted of orchestrating a
suicide bombing, and now a Palestinian politician with influence over the refugee camps. “We’re
witnessing a new era here — the settlers see a chance to end the whole Palestinian project, to clip
both wings of Palestinians, one in Gaza, and the other in the West Bank.”
The surge in violence has left Abdel Hakim Wadi, 52, mourning the loss of his brother and nephew.
On October 11, after armed settlers shot four people in his village of Qusra, his brother Ibrahim and
26-year-old Ahmed decided to help with the funeral.
Abdel Hakim Wadi in his home in the Palestinian village of Qusra © Ayman Oghanna /FT
Both were scions of a proud political family, with photographs of their meetings with Jordan’s King
Abdullah and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in their living rooms. Ibrahim was a chemist,
and Ahmed, an avid traveller and law student.
They went to a nearby hospital in a small convoy, including ambulances to carry the dead, hoping
to avoid the settlers living nearby on land confiscated from Qusra village. On their way back, said
Wadi, they were asked by an Israeli military liaison to change their route.
They drove straight into an ambush, Wadi said, with the settlers blocking the road and burning
tyres. Rifle and pistol fire came from a grove of olive trees nearby. “They were screaming, burn the
ambulance, burn the bodies,” he said.
Dashcam footage at the chaotic scene showed Israeli soldiers firing near the Palestinians, as Wadi
said his brother tried to create a path for the ambulances. He turned around to see Ibrahim
crumple from a gunshot wound. His nephew ran for his car but was shot dead before he reached it.
“It was all over in seconds,” Wadi said, his voice trailing off. “I don’t even support Hamas, and this
is what they’ve done to me.”
