As Gaza War Wages On, Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinians and Create a New Reality in the West Bank
As Gaza War Wages On, Israeli Settlers Attack Palestinians and Create a New Reality in the West Bank
While the IDF and the Shin Bet are busy in the Gaza Strip, West Bank settlers are exploiting the war to invade private lands, attack Palestinians and arm themselves with military weapons
While public attention in Israel is gripped by the fighting in the Gaza Strip and the rising tensions along the Lebanese border, the reality in the West Bank is also changing: defense sources say that settlers are having their way, often breaking the law.
These actions are being openly supported by members of the coalition, while security forces mostly turn a blind eye, sometimes even giving the settlers their protection.
Since October 7, more than 170 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israelis across the West Bank. This includes suspected terrorists killed by security forces. The Shin Bet is aware of four cases in which the settlers shot and killed Palestinians, but estimates put settler violence at a far larger number.
According to the Shin Bet, there have been 120 hate crimes committed by Jews in the West Bank since the war broke out. So far, no charges have been brought in any of these cases.
A settler is seen in a red shirt on the right in a snapshot from footage of a shooting in the West Bank, last month.Credit: B'tselem
Besides the overt violence, settlers are also creating facts on the ground by paving roads, which Israel's court decisions have deemed illegal and invading private Palestinian lands while doing so. Up to this point, several kilometers of new road have been breached, which according to the settlers are meant to keep them safe.
A road was paved from the settlement of Aley Zahav to the hill on which an outpost is planned, at a cost of hundreds of thousands of shekels. To build it, engineering tools were diverted from infrastructure work they carried out for the council. Another route has been breached in Emmanuel, and now the settlers are asking to pave a road that is more than 20 kilometers long, between the Karnei Shomron and Kiryat Netafim settlements.
Although the construction was not coordinated with the IDF, it is being secured by soldiers, and the Civil Administration has refrained from acting on the matter.
A man and a child stand at the entrance of a burnt house during in the aftermath of an attack there by Israeli settlers, earlier this year.Credit: Ahmad Gharabali - AFP
The face behind these bold actions is the head of the Shomron Regional Council, Yossi Dagan. According to sources familiar with the events in the West Bank, Dagan and other council officials have in fact “deterred” security forces to the extent that they now act unhindered. “In [the West Bank] there is no law, it's an area where anarchy exists and the state turns a blind eye,” a senior Israeli government source told Haaretz.
Since the war broke out, he said, “the sovereign on the ground is the heads of the regional councils. They even control the army, and there is no one to stop them.”
As an example, a defense source points to the incident in which Bilal Saleh was killed near the village of al-Sawiya. Saleh was shot by a soldier on leave who lives in the settlement of Rahelim, who was "strolling" with his family in a Palestinian family's private olive grove. According to the suspect, his family was attacked by Palestinians, and he fired warning shots because he feared for their lives.
The Regional Council Head Yossi Dagan was quick to arrive on the scene. “I am here with the Shomron Regional Council security officer,” he said in a video he released on that Saturday. Dagan even got the approval of rabbis to publish a video on the Sabbath.
A Palestinian man cooks for his family during the olive harvest at a grove outside Ramallah, West Bank, Saturday.Credit: Aris Messinins - AFP
Dagan added: “I have investigated everyone here with the IDF officers, all the people, including those who were on the ground. This event is simple – it is a normative, good family, residents of the settlement, the father is an educator, the son is a combat soldier in the IDF on Shabbat holidays, who went out to their orchard by the settlement and were attacked with stones and rocks by dozens of Hamas operatives in the area adjacent to their orchard.”
A person present at the scene said Dagan got there before anyone whose job it is to investigate the incident, and even spoke to the settlers involved before the official investigators: “He came with security guards before the police and the Shin Bet, and by the time they arrived, he had already gone into the settler family's house and talked to them. When he left the house, he passed by a Shin Bet man and said that 'the incident was taken care of, close the case.'"
Open gallery view
A Palestinian woman during the olive harvest at a grove outside Ramallah, Saturday.Credit: Aris Messinis- AFP
The Shin Bet man was shocked and said to him, “no case is closed,” but it appears Dagan was right, Dagan had closed the case. The suspect was recently released from custody.
Dagan's power puts into stark relief how powerless the army commanders in the area are. IDF officers to which Haaretz spoke lodge criticism at two of them: Judea and Samaria Regional Commander Brig. Gen. Avi Blut, and Judea Brigade commander Col. Yishai Rozolio, whose jurisdiction includes the Hebron area and the southern Hebron Hills.
Recently, Rozolio ruled that Palestinians living in Hebron would only be able to enter the Jewish area of the city for shopping or access to educational institutions during a two-hour window each day. Outside of this period, Palestinians are required to stay in their homes.
“Something crazy is happening in the Judea Brigade, and especially in Hebron,” sources said. “The Hebron settlers do whatever they want, enter Palestinian homes, destroy, break and burn stuff freely. The whole security apparatus stands by and does nothing. In some cases, the soldiers even guard the settlers, so that the Palestinians will not attack them.”
Israeli soldiers restrain Jewish settlers after they stormed the Palestinian West Bank village of Dayr Sharaf, earlier this month.Credit: Jaafar Ashtiyeh - AFP
As Haaretz reported three weeks ago, Palestinians living near the Jewish settlement in Hebron were forced to leave their homes during the war and move to an area under Palestinian control. “There are no police here because they don’t have the manpower, and until they arrive the event is over,” a defense source said. “The Shin Bet is busy thwarting terrorist attacks, and the Palestinians have realized that they have no recourse and prefer to stay away from the settlement.”
The anarchy in the area is illustrated by an announcement issued by the leaders of the Hebron settlement last week, in which they invited the community to join an olive harvest event in Palestinian-owned olive groves. “We are pleased to invite the community to harvest olives in Tel Hebron,” the statement said. The event, it was noted, “is intended for all ages, youth and adults.” Although illegal, the olive harvest was guarded by soldiers stationed in the Hebron area.
The IDF also guarded the settlers who recently uprooted more than a thousand decades-old olive trees belonging to Palestinians. Meanwhile, members of the coalition, led by Finance and Minister in the Defense Ministry Bezalel Smotrich, demanded that Palestinians not be allowed to harvest their olives lest they clash with settlers.
Israeli forces keep watch near a checkpoint in Ramallah, Friday.Credit: Fadel Senna - AFP
The army is obliged to allow Palestinians access to the olive groves, many of which are located within the settlements, and to protect them during the harvest. A member of Smotrich's party, Zvi Sukkot, who was appointed chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee's subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, asked Chief-of-Staff Halevi last Wednesday why he was not preventing the Palestinian harvest.
“This is a very tense issue among the population of Judea and Samaria for many years,” Halevi told him. “We want to allow the harvest. As a rule, wherever it is possible to secure the harvest, it will take place, and wherever it is not, it will either be postponed to a time when we can secure it or it will not happen.”
In practice, those who make the rules are the settlers and the army commanders on the ground. Palestinian farmers say they are exposed to gunfire by settlers and soldiers during the harvest, and some even stopped coming to the orchards because of the attacks.
In some cases, sources claim that settlers contacted landowners directly and warned them not to enter the settlement areas, even with military security. Quitting the yearly harvest is a severe economic blow to farmers, for whom the oil is a source of livelihood throughout the year.
A settler by the entrance to a West Bank village before a violent incident, earlier this month.Credit: Omri Eran-Vardi
Another development that worries the security establishment is the influx of thousands of weapons into the settlements’ area defense squads, under the auspices of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and with Smotrich's encouragement. These squads, which until recently numbered hundreds of people, parallel the community defense squads in communities within Israel.
They are subject to the IDF's Central Command and are supposed to operate only within the settlements, and only in situations that are life-threatening. Except at the moment, there is zero oversight of these militias. A reservist reporting for operational deployment in the Ariel region of the West Bank was shocked to see a settler in civilian clothes carrying FN MAG machine gun, which he was aiming at the Palestinian town of Salfit.
“No one told us he was there,” the soldier said. “All the forces are under high stress, and with the number of weapons circulating among the settlers, this might end in disaster if soldiers and settlers open fire at each other.”
“Anyone who sees what is happening immediately gets that there is a problem here, that if this isn't addressed we'll have extremist militias on our hands,” a security source told Haaretz.
Israel's National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir attends an event at which new weapons are distributed to Israel's police volunteer security teams, last month.Credit: Violeta Santos Moura / Reuters
“The vast majority of the settlers are good people and there are IDF combatants there who know how to use weapons, but there are also people who would not have received weapons at any other time, and in many cases they go outside the settlement bounds with them, contrary to the instructions. It’s only a matter of time before the extremist and armed minority starts to operate independently without coordinating with the army.”
Some among the settlers share this fear. “A lot of people feel today that there is no one to protect them, and the leadership has decided to allow them to defend themselves,” says a resident of one of the settlements, “but each of the area defense squads acts on its own, and the bigger they are, the harder it is to monitor their activities and check who the people receiving weapons are.
The fear is that the IDF will see them as forces that can replace the army in security events. To tell the truth, not everyone (in the squads) knows and is able to fight if they need to.”
Abu Bashar, the representative of the Wadi al Seeq community, leans against an olive tree as he stands in a field in the West Bank after his village was attacked by Israeli settlers, last month.Credit: Thomas Ceoex - AFP
At the same time, a source in the defense establishment criticizes the IDF’s Judea and Samaria Division’s regional reserve battalions. Most of the fighters in these battalions are settlers who live in the area. According to the source, skirmishes that would have ended with no injuries in the past are now often escalating, with Palestinians being killed or injured.
This IDF responded: “Since the beginning of the war, a number of spacial engineering changes have been made to help protect the region's citizens. Some of the actions were done contrary to procedures and without pre-arrangement and are now being examined.
Any construction that is done by civilians privately, and which has not been coordinated or approved by the IDF or the Civil Administration, is treated in accordance with the order of enforcement priorities, as is customary. As for the construction that is done within the settlements, this is the responsibility of the local authorities and is not under the supervision or responsibility of the IDF.
In accordance with updating assessments, and in order to provide security for all residents of the area, some of the entrances to the Palestinian villages were blocked, but these are obstructions that do not prevent entry and exit from the Palestinian villages and cities. As for the strengthening of the settlement's community defense squads, so far they have been reinforced by about 8,000 weapons, as has been done throughout the State of Israel.
These weapons were given to the reserve soldiers in the Area Defense Squads and to the Community Defense Squads. The professional bodies perform professional guidance and routine oversight over compliance with the guidelines, and to the extent that there are deficiencies in conduct they are treated accordingly. The security forces will continue to act in the Judea and Samaria area in order to provide security for all residents of the area.”
A Palestinian harvests olives near the Israeli wall near Hebron in the West Bank, last month.Credit: Reuters/Mussa Qawasma
The IDF did not directly address criticism of senior commanders in the West Bank, claims of the army's incompetence against the settlers in Hebron, or the army's providing security to settler harvesting Palestinian olive orchards.
The Shomron Regional Council said in response: “The council and its head are acting in accordance with the law and in full coordination with the security forces. Any other statement is slanderous. During a war, when 80% of the men in Judea and Samaria are recruited to defend the state on the northern and southern fronts, Haaretz is busy trying to discredit the pioneering settlement in Judea and Samaria, central Israel's protective belt."
"The residents of Samaria will continue to build the Land of Israel and defend the State of Israel everywhere, in Judea and Samaria, in the south and in the north. There statement reportedly said to the Shin Bet was never uttered. Needless to say, the Shomron Regional Council does not build roads.”
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