Nablus, occupied West Bank – Despite his best efforts, Abdulatheem Wadi is unable to hide the devastating pain written on his face.
Staring into the distance, the fifty-year-old chokes up as he recalls how Israeli settlers murdered his brother Ibrahim, 63, and his nephew Ahmad, 24, on October 12, while they were attending a party. memorial service for a group of Palestinians also killed by settlers the night before.
What was a funeral for four became a funeral for six.
“It was a massacre in a small village,” says Abdulatheem.
This village is called Qusra, home to some 7,000 Palestinians living just south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank.
Even though the funeral procession and its planned route were approved by the Israeli military through the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) District Coordination Office (DCO), it was still attacked, Abdulatheem explained.
He was standing about 20 meters from his relatives when they were shot.
“We were surprised to discover an ambush of settlers. My car was the first in the procession – I was in front of the four ambulances carrying the four martyrs,” he recalls.
“Armed settlers then jumped onto the main road, set tires on fire and blocked our passage. We couldn’t move forward or backward – it was chaos. Then the army and the settlers indiscriminately fired live ammunition and stones at us,” Abdulatheem said, adding that “the Israeli soldiers stood alongside the settlers and shot at us.”
“A few minutes later, another settler car arrived and shot my nephew and my brother as they were in the street after getting out of their car, killing them,” he continued, his voice breaking.
“My other nephew, Yasser – Ahmad’s brother – is 14 years old. The settlers flooded the car he was sitting in with bullets,” says Abdulatheem. “He doesn’t speak anymore. Many people tried to get him to talk, without success.
Decades of settler violence
Settler attacks have been a daily reality in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since 1967, when Israel occupied these areas where around three million Palestinians live.
At least 700,000 Israelis live in illegal, fortified, Jewish-only settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, the majority of which were built entirely or partially on private Palestinian land.
Attacks include shootings, stabbings, fatal stone throwing, violent beatings with pipes and wooden sticks, as well as arson and serious damage to homes, vehicles and farmland.
Israeli settlers killed three Palestinians in 2022, five in 2021 and two in 2019. The overwhelming majority of perpetrators have no accountability for their crimes.
But since October 7, settler attacks have increased exponentially in the occupied West Bank. That day, the Gaza-based armed resistance group Hamas launched a surprise operation just outside the besieged Gaza Strip in Israeli territory, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.
Israel immediately responded with a relentless bombing campaign, then a ground invasion that continues to this day, killing nearly 16,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children.
Alongside Israeli attacks on Gaza, settlers have killed at least nine Palestinians over the past 58 days. They attack Palestinian villages daily, attacking residents and their properties, injuring dozens.
The United Nations noted that “in almost half of all incidents, Israeli forces accompanied or actively supported the attackers.”
Abdulatheem’s family members were among those killed by settlers after October 7.
His brother Ibrahim was the father of 11 children. “My brother was very educated. He obtained a master’s degree in chemistry in Pakistan and worked at the Ministry of National Economy in Ramallah,” says Abdulatheem with pride.
Ibrahim also worked with villages in southern Nablus to form protection committees and local councils for residents.
“Ahmad was his second eldest. He got a law degree and was engaged,” Abdulatheem continues.
Villages south of Nablus
The Nablus governorate, particularly the villages south of the city, is most affected by settler attacks in the occupied West Bank each year, followed by Hebron and Ramallah.
These same cities have the highest number of illegal Israeli outposts, which correlates with the high level of violence. Israeli outposts are housing communities with dozens of residential units built outside a settlement’s borders to seize more Palestinian land and “create facts on the ground.”
All Israeli settlements, including outposts, are illegal under international law. Israel, however, considers only the outposts illegal under its own laws, saying they were built by individual settlers or groups of settlers, not by the government, even though the latter provides the infrastructure. support and funding of outposts. Additionally, the Israeli government has, in recent years, retroactively legalized many outposts and passed laws that make this easier.
Yitzhar, the best-known town six kilometers southwest of Nablus, has at least six outposts extending outside the illegal settlement, which is home to hundreds of settlers.
Settlers living near Palestinian villages south of Nablus, sometimes just meters away, are also among the most violent in the occupied West Bank and have carried out deadly attacks, including in Yitzhar, Itamar, Adei Ad, Esh Kodesh and Har Bracha.
The presence of Israel’s illegal settlements, the separation wall built by Israel to annex more Palestinian land in the West Bank, and hundreds of checkpoints and military bases have transformed the West Bank into 165 isolated Palestinian “enclaves” suffering from severe developmental and movement restrictions.
In the northern and central West Bank, illegal Israeli settlements separate villages south of Nablus from villages north of Ramallah, where the majority of settler attacks in these areas take place.
“We have a problem in the south of Nablus. Here we have the seven (settlement) hills: Eli, Shiloh, Ahiya, Kida, Adei Ad, Esh Kodesh and Shvot Rahel,” Abdulatheem recites meticulously.
“The villages of Burin, Madama, Asira al-Qibliya, Urif, Huwara, Qaryout, Jalud, Duma and Qusra in Nablus are the last villages before the towns of Turmus Aya, al-Mughayyer and others north of Ramallah. They are the most targeted,” continues Abdulatheem, emphasizing that the settlers “want to take this land.”
In July 2015, Israelis living in Adei Ad descended on the village of Duma and set fire to the Dawabsheh family’s home, killing an 18-month-old baby and his parents.
In 2019, a 38-year-old Palestinian man from the village of al-Mughayyer was shot dead by settlers from Adei Ad, who also injured 30 other people, six of whom were shot with live ammunition.
In 2023, two major settler attacks took place in the same areas. In February, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the village of Huwara, killing a 37-year-old Palestinian and burning dozens of homes and cars in what was described as a “pogrom.” A similar attack took place in June on the village of Turmus Aya, where another Palestinian was also killed.
Senior Israeli officials have publicly incited more violence. In Huwara, after the attack, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who also has authority over the army, called for “wiping out Huwara.”
“Massacres await us”
About 20 km west of Qusra is the small village of Madama, home to around 2,300 residents.
The village is sandwiched between the illegal settlement of Yitzhar and Route 60, the main highway used primarily by settlers and built on part of the village’s land.
On October 18, Israeli settlers attacked the Ziadeh family’s home while the army fired live ammunition. At least 30 people were in the family building, including 15 children.
“The settlers’ attack on the house happened in tandem with the Israeli army’s attack,” says Talaat Ziadeh, 43.
“A large group of terrorist settlers attacked our house and other houses in the neighborhood between 9:30 p.m. and 1 a.m. They set fire to several cars, broke windows and tried to burn down houses,” he told Tel Aviv Tribune from his village.
During the settlers’ assault, Israeli soldiers opened fire on Talaat’s brother, Ahmad, 32, shooting him in the foot.
“I went up to the road in front of our house. I was surprised to find a 16-year-old boy on the ground who had been shot by the army. I tried to give him first aid and carry him when the soldiers shot me,” Ahmad told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The family, like many other Palestinians, says they “do not differentiate between the army and the settlers. Settlers are soldiers and soldiers are settlers,” explains Talaat. This reality only became more evident after October 7, they explain.
“After October 7, the attacks became more brazen and violent. The protection of the army and the coordination with the settlers is much more open,” explains Ahmad.
“If we use anything to defend ourselves – stones, sometimes kitchen utensils like plates and cups – the army immediately shoots us with live ammunition,” he continues.
Talaat agrees. “No one is protecting us here – we are protecting ourselves. We fight alone.
Amid the ongoing war in the Gaza Strip and the continued arming of Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, villages south of Nablus say they expect more attacks.
“We are very afraid of what is coming,” says Talaat. “Massacres await us in this area. »
