“Senior IDF officials: The risk is growing that armed Palestinians will organize to return fire against violent settlers.” This was the headline that made waves at the beginning of the past week. One has to struggle to find words that adequately describe how senior military officers can whisper in a journalist’s ear, revealing that they are powerless—as if this were an area beyond the army’s control—when in fact the army is the sovereign authority on the ground. Uniformed officers with generals’ insignia on their shoulders warn that the (occupied) West Bank is on the verge of an explosion because, in the reality created by Israel, those giving the orders in the West Bank are the terrorist settlers who invade Palestinian villages, set fire to fields, beat residents and drive families from their homes, while soldiers stand by and even assist the rioters.
Last week, Israeli children and teenagers returned to school for a new academic year. Will they learn the principles of the Declaration of Independence, according to which the state will be founded on the principles of freedom, justice and peace, guarantee equal treatment to all its citizens regardless of religion, sex or race, and be committed to safeguarding fundamental freedoms and rights? Will their teachers mention that there is a Green Line (the 1967 border line)? Will the students learn the meaning of the term “Nakba”? Probably not.
These graduates of a failed education system will put on IDF uniforms when they finish their studies. Some will contribute to the security of the state; others will be assigned to the occupation army and cooperate with settler terrorism, while taking care to conceal their faces behind “Hague masks,” lest, after leaving the army, they be unable to cross the borders of the apartheid state into enlightened countries. For now, it appears that Palestinians in the occupied territories are waiting for those countries to exert pressure that will force a change in the Israeli government’s annexation policy. At the same time, they are awaiting the election results and hoping that a fundamental change will follow. Judging by the current statements of opposition leaders, the prospects for such a change appear bleak. Could it be that once the votes have been counted and the Knesset seats allocated, they will have something different to say?
Sunday – Four Palestinians were wounded by IDF gunfire in al-Mughayyir, near Ramallah. The soldiers arrived at the outskirts of the village after settlers had invaded its lands and residents attempted to prevent the incursion. Following the shooting, the army raided the village and closed its only entrance.
Activists from the “Changing Direction” movement arrived in the morning at the Givat Ronen outpost near Nablus to protest settler terrorism. An IDF force quickly arrived and removed them, citing a closed military zone.
Khirbet al-Twail: Another structure is being erected at the outpost opposite the community. In the evening, settlers threw the carcass of a calf near the home of a Palestinian family.
The police petitioned the Magistrate’s Court to issue arrest warrants for settlers suspected of involvement in the attack on Palestinians in Kousra on Saturday. Although a closed military zone order had been issued, settlers were still staying in Palestinian buildings they had taken over.
Monday – “Senior IDF officials: The risk is growing that armed Palestinians will organize to return fire against violent settlers,” wrote Yaniv Kubovich in Haaretz. According to the report, the officials expressed concern about a terrorist attack similar to the arson attack on a home in Duma (act of terrorism committed on July 31, 2015, by a Jewish extremist against a Palestinian family killing three people), followed by a Palestinian revenge attack against outposts. They also warned of the worsening disconnect between the commander of the IDF Central Command and the commander of the Judea and Samaria District of the police: “The worst-case scenarios are on their way to becoming reality, and very soon.”
The report further said that the IDF has identified a significant increase in the number of settlers taking part in riots in the West Bank, which have become increasingly violent, and that, according to the officials, settlers are no longer afraid of the army. The officers who spoke to the journalist also believe that the fact that settlers arrive in villages by vehicle on Saturdays, as happened in Kousra at the end of the previous week, indicates that there is rabbinical authority supporting these actions. At the same time, the army is seeing increasing numbers of groups of young Palestinians arriving to defend residents in villages at points of friction.
Knesset Member Gilad Kariv (The Democrats) sent a pre-litigation letter to the Defense Minister and the IDF Chief of Staff concerning settler violence against residents of Khirbet al-Twail and the use of closed military zone orders—which he described as “blatantly unlawful conduct”—as a punitive tool against protective-presence activists (carried out by members of “Looking the Occupation in the Eye”), while “residents of the illegal outposts continue to act on the ground as if they own it.”
MK Kariv further wrote: “Not infrequently, the orders are presented by Home Front Command soldiers from the nearby communities.... This conduct leaves Palestinian residents alone to face groups of Israeli rioters who sow fear and inflict bodily and property damage. This selective enforcement of closed military zone orders—a phenomenon familiar and well known throughout Judea and Samaria—is an unlawful action by local army commanders, and its meaning is one thing: providing practical assistance to violent rioters.”
Two additional settlements were established in Areas A and C of the West Bank. They are two of the 104 settlements approved by the current government.
Tuesday – Eight right-wing activists, aged 16 to 20, were arrested overnight between Monday and Tuesday on suspicion of involvement in the arson of a mosque and homes in two incidents in the southern Hebron Hills in August and July.
Settlers attempted to set fire to a mosque in the village of Beit Za’ariya, northwest of Nablus. The perpetrators sprayed graffiti, including the messages “Hakbi sends regards from the terrorists” and “Evictions = trouble. You have been warned.” They also wrote a threat against news journalist.
Wednesday – Two young men, Omar Muhammad Naji Na’ssan and Khalil Rasem Abu Alia, were killed in a settler attack on the village of al-Mughayyir in the evening. Army forces were present at the scene. According to Palestinian reports, the settlers stole livestock, while IDF snipers were deployed on the rooftops of the village near Ramallah.
According to an IDF statement, the settlers’ armed entry into the village was intended to locate livestock that they claimed had been stolen. The statement read: “A violent disturbance developed in the area, during which terrorists threw cinder blocks and stones at the force, which responded with fire toward key instigators in order to remove the threat. Hits were identified.”
This incident reflects a familiar practice among settlers. They approach the residential area of a Palestinian herding community with a flock and notify the army that livestock has been stolen or missing. In some cases, they deliberately leave a goat or sheep there. They then enter the community’s homes and animal pens under the protection of soldiers, supposedly “searching for the missing livestock.” Such an incursion leads to a confrontation between the two sides, resulting in gunfire at Palestinians. This time, it ended with two deaths.
Twelve Palestinian families were left homeless after the army demolished 15 residential structures in Khirbet al-Taban in Masafer Yatta. The destruction of the village included the demolition of livestock pens and sheds, wells and water tanks, as well as a solar-powered electricity network. According to the IDF, the village was established in a firing zone. It is worth noting that the state allows settler outposts and farms to be established in the same area. According to B’Tselem organisation, Israel has expelled 66 Palestinian communities from their homes since October 2023.
Thursday – A 19-year-old was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack on the Palestinian village of Kousra the previous Saturday, during which dozens of settlers raided a building where Palestinians were working and drove them out.
The party of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich issued a statement saying that the Interior Ministry had granted “locality symbols” to four settlements, thereby completing the process of formally regularizing them. They include the city of “Shira,” which is expected to be established between Ariel and Oranit, adjacent to Highway 5, and to contain tens of thousands of housing units.
Friday – Human rights activists arrived in Kousra to express solidarity with residents of the besieged homes and to deliver food packages organized by Palestinians from the village. The activists reached the area, where Border Police and Home Front Command forces were waiting for them and declared it a closed military zone. The activists asked to deliver the supplies to the families staying there. At first, the forces refused, but after an exchange, they allowed one vehicle to enter and deliver the food packages.
Dozens of activists from the “Reservists Against Terror” group arrived in Halhul to provide a protective presence for Palestinian farmers suffering from violence by settlers and hilltop youth, without receiving adequate protection from the security forces. In an interview with the War Room website, one activist said:
“Unfortunately, when we arrived with the farmers whose plot, whose vineyard it was, we encountered a Jewish family—two parents and four children, some of them very young—who had simply harvested the vineyard and stolen grapes that did not belong to them. Instead of the IDF removing them from the area, we were the ones who did it. Instead of protecting the farmers and allowing them to harvest their own vineyard and earn a living, an IDF force that arrived in the area declared it a closed military zone and removed both the farmers and us from the area.”
When the activists returned to their vehicles, they discovered that settlers had slashed the tires. They claimed that police officers who arrived at the scene asked to detain the activists.
Saturday – U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said that Israel must take action against settler terrorism.
“Crime is crime and terrorism is terrorism.... There are acts of terror that cannot continue without the state investigating and taking action against them,” the ambassador said while speaking with Palestinian-American residents during a visit to the town of Turmus Ayya in the Ramallah Governorate, which has repeatedly been attacked by settlers. According to reports, 80% of the town’s residents hold American citizenship.
The settlers and the army closed the gates of the town of Aqraba, on the outskirts of which Khirbet al-Twail is located. According to the army, the reason was that “a confrontation developed” between Palestinians and settlers.
