Israeli settlers and soldiers killed three Palestinians in their village near Ramallah on Saturday night, the third deadly attack in a week of escalating Israeli violence in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli settlers have shot dead five civilians during invasions of Palestinian olive groves, villages and grazing lands, in the brief period since Israel and the United States launched a new war against Iran in late February. A sixth person died on Saturday after inhaling military-grade tear gas used by the Israeli army.
The escalation of the regional conflict diverted diplomatic, media and political attention from occupied Palestine, even as Israeli authorities imposed a new blockade on Gaza and imposed extensive movement restrictions throughout the occupied West Bank, and settlers intensified Israeli attacks on Palestinian land, crops, livestock and homes.
“Under the pretext of war, cooperation between the army and Israeli settler militias is deepening the ethnic cleansing of the West Bank,” the Israel-based human rights group B’tselem said this week.
“Settlers deliberately graze livestock on Palestinians’ cultivated fields, destroy crops and stored food, steal livestock, and vandalize solar panels and water tanks. Settlers have also used bulldozers to bulldoze and seize privately owned Palestinian land.”
The most recent killings occurred on Saturday night after Palestinians from Abu Falah tried to stop a group of masked Israelis from destroying olive trees on the outskirts of the city. Later, dozens of armed settlers descended on the town, relatives and neighbors of the dead told the Guardian, and killed Thaer Faruq Hamayel, 30, and Fara Jawdat Hamayel, 57. Both men had been shot in the head.
Israeli security forces who arrived later at the standoff fired military-grade tear gas into the narrow streets of Abu Falah. Muhammad Hassan, a 54-year-old father of four, died after inhaling it.
“What is happening now is extremely dangerous. The world is worried about war with Iran, while settlers, protected by the Israeli army, continue to attack innocent civilians,” said Amin Shuman, a member of the local Abu Falah council. “No one is held accountable.”
Settler attacks had intensified over the past week and on Saturday they arrived armed with clubs, slingshots, pistols and M16 rifles, said Hamid Hamayel, Thaer’s cousin. “Their goal is to confiscate the land and force us to leave. These attacks would not happen without close cooperation between the settlers and the Israeli army.”
The Israeli military commander in the occupied West Bank, Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, described the Abu Falah shootings as an “unacceptable incident.” There will be “zero tolerance for civilians who take the law into their own hands,” he added, and said those responsible would be brought to justice.
Bluth has not commented directly on two deadly shootings carried out earlier this week by Israeli reservist settlers wearing army uniforms, in which three Palestinians were killed and a fourth seriously injured.
On Monday, two brothers were killed while trying to stop settlers from damaging olive trees in Qaryut, a small Palestinian village in the northern West Bank. Muhammad Taha Muammar, 52, was shot in the head and Fahim Taha Muammar, 48, was shot in the lower body. When the Israeli military arrived they arrested more than 20 Palestinians from the village and road closures prevented ambulances from reaching the wounded for more than an hour, B’tselem said.
The day after the shooting, the Israeli military said it had confiscated a reservist’s gun, Israeli media reported. A spokesman said Sunday that the military was treating the attack with “utmost severity” and was investigating.
Another massacre occurred on Saturday at the opposite end of the West Bank. The settlers drove cattle onto Palestinian land in the village of Wadi a-Rakhim, south of the Hebron Hills, and opened fire at point-blank range when residents tried to stop them.
Amir Muhammad Shanaran, 28, was killed and his brother Khaled was seriously injured. Footage filmed moments after the attack and shared by B’tselem shows an Israeli in military uniform holding an assault rifle a few meters from one of the men who is collapsed on the ground. The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment on the shooting.
Since October 2023, violent settlers have used the Israeli military as a vehicle to intensify their campaign against Palestinians throughout the occupied West Bank. Reserve units drawn from settlements have functioned as surveillance militias, according to Israeli soldiers and activists and the United Nations.
Breaking the Silence, an advocacy group for former Israeli soldiers, said settlers were carrying out an average of 10 attacks a day in the West Bank under the cover of war. “As is often the case when media attention shifts, Israel took advantage of the moment to intensify its attacks against Palestinians,” the group said on social media. “As missiles fly and Iran once again dominates the headlines, let us not look away from the ethnic cleansing unfolding in the West Bank.”
Sufian Taha and Quique Kierszenbaum contributed reports
