There is “a real risk” of the Occupied Territory of Palestine in the West Bank “spiralling out of control”, the UN said this week.
This risk is driven by the rapid rise in uncontrolled violence being carried out by armed settlers supported by the Israeli military against unarmed Palestinians, particularly in the unprotected farming areas of the OPT since October 7th. Such violence is directly linked to Ben Gvir’s gun distribution to settlers and a green light from the Israeli fascist government.
This rise in violence can also be attributed to far-right figures now in power in the Israeli government. Of these, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir who was refused entry to the Israeli military as his views were too racist and extreme against the Palestinians. He has been seen recently distributing even more guns to already well-armed Israeli settlers since hostilities broke out on October 7th. Others include Bezalel Smotrich, Minister of Finance, who has defended setters who commit violence. Also, Limor Son Har-Melech a settler and member of the Kahanist party who railed against security officials who speak out against the settler movement.
Since October 7th, throughout the OPT, Palestinian cities and villages have been cut off from one another through the Israeli closures and the threat of settler attacks, resulting in a near-complete commercial standstill and severe restrictions on movement. And with the eyes of the world focused on the massacres and genocide being wrought on the citizens of Gaza, settlers and soldiers in the (OPT) have stepped up their attacks on innocent unarmed Palestinians. The UN has reported that the weeks following October 7th have been the deadliest for Palestinians on the West Bank so far this year with least 123 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military or settlers, including 34 children. There was also a rare Israeli air strike bombing Jenin camp on October 12th that killed at least 12 people.
Some 2,157 Palestinians, including at least 201 children have also been injured. The UN reports that the incidents of settler violence is up 23% to eight a day with injuries from live ammunition now eight time higher than before Oct 7th. So far, in the last three weeks, there have been 178 settler attacks against Palestinians.
The young and old are not spared either. On 30th October, Israeli forces shot and killed a 14-year-old child during a search-and-arrest operation near Zawata junction in Nablus city. On 31st October an elderly man, a bystander, was shot and killed during a search-and-arrest operation in Tubas city.
But far away from sight in the remote areas of the West Bank, Bedouins and herders are being specifically targeted by armed violent religious zealot settlers in a systematic frontier war against small hamlets mostly of herding and agricultural farmers. Attacks are not only against persons but occur also in infrastructure such as homes, agricultural related structures, cars and trees and saplings.
Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem reports that during the current offensive, violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians has greatly escalated, preventing them from accessing their lands, attacking them while picking olives, expelling them from their fields, and attacking Palestinians moving on roads. Preventing access to water and food, especially in the herding communities, is orchestrated by Israel with the aim of displacing the Palestinian communities in those areas. The illegal Israeli settlers also launched widespread incitement campaigns on social media against the Palestinians which were fraught with explicit threats to the Palestinians threatening them with assault, vandalising property, and killing them. This phenomenon has terrified Palestinians, making their movement fraught with danger and fear.
One person to receive such a threat is Abed Wadi from the Qusra village located in the northern part of the West Bank near Nablus. He received an image and message, forwarded to him by a friend, of a group of masked men posing with axes, a petrol canister, and a chainsaw, with text printed on the image in Hebrew and Arabic. “To all the rats in the sewers of Qusra village, we are waiting for you and we will not mourn you” the text said. “The day of revenge is coming.” Abed Wadi was going to a funeral that day for four Palestinians from the village. Three had been killed the previous day – Wednesday 11th October – after Israeli settlers entered Qusra and attacked a Palestinian family home. The fourth was shot dead in clashes with Israeli soldiers which followed.
The Mayor of Qusra, Hani Awda Abu Alaa, reported that the residents of Qusra are living in terror with attacks on the village occurring daily. These attacks have included killing villagers, attacking the local mosque, burning down olive groves and other attacks aimed at violent intimidation and harassment. He commented that the illegal Israeli settlers are violent all the time against his village, and neighbouring villages, especially now as the war in Gaza has empowered them.
The goal of this violence is to make it untenable for Palestinians to stay on their land. That depopulation has already taken place in other areas as well. In at least two villages, Al-Qanub and Wadi Al-Sik, there are no Palestinians left because of violence and aggression by Israeli settlers. Those villages that are left are cut off from other villages and cities in the West Bank deliberately.
An example of how this is achieved is the following account. On October 12th Israeli soldiers and illegal Israeli settlers attacked Wadi al-Siq, terrifying the residents firing their weapons into the air like mad cowboys forcing most residents to flee. But they also, as reported in Haartz (Oct 12th), kidnapped three Palestinians and several Israeli peace activists before subjecting them to severe physical abuse, including harsh beatings, burning their skin with cigarettes, and attempted sexual assault. They were blindfolded, handcuffed and stripped down to their underwear during hours of torture by Israeli settlers and soldiers. The Israeli activists were there to try and protect the residents as well as to bear witness to this ethnic cleansing taking place.
The settlers and soldiers also stole phones, IDs, cash, and a car from the people they kidnapped. The Israelis were released after a few hours, while the Palestinians — two of whom are employees of the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, the other a resident of the village, were held until late into the evening.
So who are carrying out theses terrifying attacks? In 2020 the Israeli military set up a unit called the Desert Frontier subordinate to the Jordan Valley Brigade. This unit mainly consists of hilltop Jewish extremist youth. They are trained by the military and are young, religious, violent, zealot settlers who regularly come down from their outposts in the occupied West Bank to attack nearby Palestinians. Many of the farmers and Bedouins living in these areas have little or no protection. On 30th October, a group of Israeli settlers broke into the Isfey al Tahta herding community in southern Hebron and set fire to a donor-funded residential structure.
Other small Palestinian Bedouin villages in the occupied West Bank are also being depopulated in a tide that has grown these past two weeks. IDF soldiers rarely act to prevent these attacks, sometimes even collaborate in them. Soldiers serving in the West Bank are often themselves settlers. The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has been documenting some of the attacks and are sharing videos online. In one, an Israeli settler, accompanied by an Israeli soldier, shoots a man at point blank range.
Palestinian farmers are particularly vulnerable at this time, during the annual olive harvest season, because if they are unable to pick their olives they will lose a year’s income. Yesterday Bilal Muhammed Saleh from the village of As-Sawiya south of Nablus was murdered by settlers while tending to his olive trees. He was yet another Palestinian to have been killed by settlers since the current war began. The violence stretches across Area C, a stretch of the occupied West Bank under Israeli security and civil control that includes the South Hebron Hills, the area east of Ramallah towards Jericho, the Jordan Valley, and Nablus. Area C constitutes about 60% of the West Bank, largely its eastern half. Clearing it of Palestinians would permanently deny them a potential border with Jordan.
The ongoing demolitions of homes also continues in Area C which has seen about 545 Palestinians forcibly displaced from at least 13 communities since October 7th, according to information from the West Bank Protection Consortium (WBPC) and Israeli human rights organisation Yesh Din. Another 121 Palestinians were displaced following the demolition of their homes by the Israeli authorities on grounds of lack of Israeli-issued building permits or as a punitive measure.
When the war broke out on Oct. 7th, 70% of standing IDF troops were stationed in the West Bank, and most of those 70% were protecting isolated settler enclaves in overwhelmingly Palestinian areas, not keeping Israelis safe within the country’s sovereign borders. With the IDF now busy on the ‘front’ in Gaza, the settlers have a free hand in the West Bank and believe no one is paying attention to their crimes. It has become even more lawless, with Palestinians paying the price.
This process of ethnic cleansing in the remote areas of the West Bank, with the forcing of impoverished unprotected shepherds out of their lands and homes by violent “hill top” Israeli settlers and Israeli youth, supported by the Israeli military, is violent ethnic cleansing on a wide scale. The attempt is to leave a vast area from east from Ramallah to the outskirts of Jericho emptied of Palestinians. With the taking of more and more land, the prospect of a two-state solution (long dead) cannot be touted by our Prime Minister Albanese and Foreign Minister Penny Wong as a solution. It is dead, dead and the Palestinians are still there in apartheid enclaves. They surely know this to be the case but are refusing to support the possibility of peace which begins, at the very least, with a ceasefire on Gaza.
The opinions expressed in this article are the authors alone.
Helen McCue
Dr Helen McCue AM is a former United Nations consultant, working in the Middle East with refugees and displaced. Dr McCue has been a strong advocate for Palestinian human rights including the rights of Palestinian refugees for over 40 years. She is co-founder of Union Aid Abroad APHEDA and co-founder of Rural Australia for Refugees (RAR). Dr McCue is the 2024 recipient of the Jerusalem Peace Prize.