[Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 51 Palestinians in the
West Bank this past week, with two villages entirely depopulated after
attacks.]
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SETTLERS TAKE ADVANTAGE OF GAZA WAR TO LAUNCH WEST BANK POGROMS  
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Yuval Abraham
October 13, 2023
972 Magazine
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_ Israeli settlers and soldiers have killed 51 Palestinians in the
West Bank this past week, with two villages entirely depopulated after
attacks. _

Israeli soldiers with Jewish settlers at the entrance to the West
Bank village of Turmus Aya, June 21, 2023., Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

 

_This article was produced in partnership with Local Call
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Intercept
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While the world focuses on
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in southern Israel and Israel’s massive bombing of the Gaza Strip,
settlers in the occupied West Bank are taking advantage of the chaos
to attack and expel Palestinians from a number of small villages.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed 51 Palestinians in the West
Bank since Saturday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health
in Ramallah. At least two villages, Al-Qanub and Wadi Al-Sik, have
been entirely depopulated as a result of the violence by Israeli
settlers.

A Palestinian in At-Tuwani, a village in the Masafer Yatta region of
the South Hebron Hills, is in critical condition after a settler,
accompanied by an Israeli soldier, invaded the community on Friday and
shot him at point blank range. The attack was documented by the
Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.

Israeli soldiers are establishing new checkpoints to block the
movement of Palestinian villagers. On Thursday evening, near Yabrud,
northeast of Ramallah, solders shot at
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vehicle carrying a Palestinian family, according to members of the
family. Randa Abdullah Abdul Aziz Ajaj, 37, was killed, and her son,
Ismail Ajaj, was hit in the foot and shoulder. Her husband and another
child were also in the vehicle but were not injured. An IDF
spokesperson claimed soldiers opened fire because the car was
“driving wildly” and the soldiers felt threatened.

Documentation: A settler shot a Palestinian point blank in the village
A-Tuwani, South Hebron Hills pic.twitter.com/Pu72XJATlJ
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— B'Tselem בצלם بتسيلم (@btselem) October 13, 2023
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Throughout the West Bank, Palestinian residents are witnessing an
increased presence of armed settlers around their villages, more
military roadblocks, and tightened movement restrictions. “At this
time we are actually living under siege. Most of the villages in the
West Bank are closed in mounds of dirt and it is impossible to get
out,” said a resident of the village of Qaryut. “There are
settlers everywhere. Every time we approach houses near a settlement,
they shoot at us. They are taking advantage of the security situation
in Gaza, to take revenge on the West Bank. Because no one is looking
at the West Bank now.”

On Wednesday, in the village of Qusra near Nablus, three Palestinians
— Moa’th Odeh, Musab Abu Rida, and Obida Abu Sarur — were shot
dead, while a 6-year-old girl was wounded in the upper body. It is
unclear who opened fire on them. The attack began with masked settlers
shooting at houses in the village, according to three eyewitnesses and
medical personnel who treated the wounded at the scene. Video footage
shows six masked men, armed with pistols and M-16 rifles, opening fire
inside the village. Later that day, according to eyewitnesses, another
resident, 13-year-old Hassan Abu Sarur, was also shot dead when
soldiers entered after the settlers withdrew from the village.

Palestinian media reported
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settlers attacked the funerals of the four Qusra residents who had
been killed the day before. According to the Palestinian Ministry of
Health, the settlers shot dead a father and son, Ibrahim and Ahmed
Wadi.

Settlers in Esh Kodesh and the surrounding area had sent warning
messages to Qusra’s residents in the previous two days, in which
they threatened to take revenge in response to Hamas’ assault in
southern Israel. In one photo, which was sent to the residents few
days ago, a group of masked men can be seen holding fuel tanks, an
electric saw, and axes, with a caption in Hebrew and Arabic: “To all
the rats in the sewers of Qusra village, we are waiting for you and we
will not feel sorry for you. The day of revenge is coming.”

The message sent by Israeli settlers to the Palestinian residents of
Qusra.

According to a Qusra resident who asked to be identified by just his
first name, Abed, “It started at noon, when 20 masked men invaded
the village and stoned the houses of families living on the edge of
the village. They came from the direction of the Esh Kodesh outpost.
We ran there to get the families out of their homes, because settlers
tried to set fire to one of the houses. A mother, father, and a girl
were inside. While we were trying to get the little girl out of the
house, they started shooting at us, hitting the girl. They killed
three people.”

According to eyewitnesses, at least 15 Palestinians were wounded by
gunfire. Medical personnel who treated the wounded said that the
condition of some of them was critical.

“I evacuated a girl who was shot; she was injured inside her house
and was bleeding,” said Bashar al-Kariyuti, a Palestinian ambulance
driver who arrived at the scene during the attack. “The girl’s
father was also shot in the face. It was impossible to recognize
him.”

Ahmed, a third eyewitness to the incident who requested that his last
name be withheld for safety reasons, recounted that the military
stayed inside their observation post while settlers opened fire at
Qusra’s residents. “My cousin was hit in the head, my brother was
shot right at the entrance to his house,” he said. “Then soldiers
took the [digital video recorder] that recorded everything; an hour
after the event they came in and confiscated cameras. I’m sure they
did it to erase the evidence.”

Residents of Qusra said that a small number of soldiers accompanied
the settlers throughout the attack. When the villagers threw stones at
the settlers, to force them back, soldiers backed up the settlers with
live fire, according to the residents.

Screenshot of video of Israeli settlers attacking village of Qusra.

Commenting on the attack, an Israeli military spokesperson said, “An
IDF force operating on the outskirts of Qusra reported hearing
gunfire. The claim about Palestinians being hit by gunfire is being
investigated.”

Along with the incident in Qusra, settlers have attacked at least 18
Palestinian villages throughout the West Bank since Hamas’ assault
on Saturday, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group. The
army announced
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due to the security situation, the police will distribute M-16 rifles
to settlers in the West Bank. Media organizations affiliated with
extremist settler groups in the area called on
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to prepare to “conquer the villages near you” and to “destroy
anyone who joins the enemy.”

On Monday, settler violence led to the expulsion of every resident of
Al-Qanub, a small village north of Hebron comprising eight families,
and which is located near the settlements of Ma’ale Amos and Asfar.
The village residents said that settlers burned three houses — made
of iron rods covered with thick cloth — with all their belongings
inside.

“[The settlers] came down to us, grabbed me, and said we had an hour
to leave the village,” said Abu Jamal, a resident of Al-Qanub.
“Then, about 10 settlers came, poured gasoline, and set fire to my
house. Seven people lived there. The cupboards, the food, everything
caught fire. They also burned my son’s house and stole all my sheep
and my livelihood. We will not go back there. I am 67 years old, and
my children are psychologically damaged.”

Wa’ed, a resident of the village, took her children and hid in a
nearby valley. “I have children, a 6-month-old baby, a 2-year-old,
and a 5-year-old,” she said, “I ran to hide with them in the
valley when the settlers entered. I heard the sounds of explosions and
thought they had killed my husband. When they left, I saw that they
had burned everything of ours.”

Families living on the outskirts of Turmus Ayya
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near the Shiloh settlement, said that eight armed settlers, partially
dressed in military uniforms, ordered them to leave their homes; they
also set up a sort of checkpoint, which they have been operating ever
since. “On the first day of the war, a group of settlers built a
room a few meters from our houses, closed our access road to the
houses, and since then have been there all the time,” said Abdullah,
a local resident. “We are 25 people, many children and women, who
cannot leave or enter the village. We reach our homes through the
olive groves. Anyone who leaves their house, including women, is
stopped and searched.”

In a mountainous area in southern Hebron, settlers on Tuesday
violently attacked residents of two tiny villages, and settlers
bulldozed two houses in the village of Simri, whose residents had
previously left due to settler violence.

“Three settlers came for my children. One with an army weapon, the
second with a gun, the third with a knife,” said an elderly resident
hospitalized with back and leg injuries, who asked to remain anonymous
for fear the settlers would take revenge on him. “They told me to
shut up and started beating me with the butt of a rifle. They knocked
me to the floor, closed the door of the house on the children, and
beat my wife in the chest as well. They said that it’s now a war,
and that if I say anything to the media, they’ll come back at night
and burn my family. I shouted to them that I am a shepherd, that I am
not connected to the war in Gaza.”

YUVAL ABRAHAM is a journalist and activist based in Jerusalem.

+972 MAGAZINE -- OUR TEAM HAS BEEN DEVASTATED BY THE HORRIFIC EVENTS
OF THIS LATEST WAR – THE ATROCITIES COMMITTED BY HAMAS IN ISRAEL AND
THE MASSIVE RETALIATORY ISRAELI ATTACKS ON GAZA. OUR HEARTS ARE WITH
ALL THE PEOPLE AND COMMUNITIES FACING VIOLENCE.

We are in an extraordinarily dangerous era in Israel-Palestine. The
bloodshed unleashed by these events has reached extreme levels of
brutality and threatens to engulf the entire region. Hamas’
murderous assault in southern Israel has devastated and shocked the
country to its core. Israel’s retaliatory bombing of Gaza is
wreaking destruction on the already besieged strip and killing a
ballooning number of civilians. Emboldened settlers in the West Bank,
backed by the army, are seizing the opportunity to escalate their
attacks on Palestinians.

This escalation has a very clear context, one that +972 has spent the
past 13 years covering: Israeli society’s growing racism and
militarism, the entrenched occupation, and an increasingly normalized
siege on Gaza.

We are well positioned to cover this perilous moment – but we need
your help to do it. This terrible period will challenge the humanity
of all of those working for a better future in this land. Palestinians
and Israelis are already organizing and strategizing to put up the
fight of their lives.

CAN WE COUNT ON YOUR SUPPORT
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LEADING MEDIA VOICE OF THIS MOVEMENT, A DESPERATELY NEEDED PLATFORM
WHERE PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI JOURNALISTS AND ACTIVISTS CAN REPORT ON
AND ANALYZE WHAT IS HAPPENING, GUIDED BY HUMANISM, EQUALITY, AND
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* Israel
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* Settler violence
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* West Bank
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* Gaza
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