‘We’re here to stay’: West Bank Palestinians defy Israeli attacks
Settlers burned homes and a mosque in at-Tuwani. Residents say it is part of a campaign to push them off their land. At-Tuwani, occupied West
Settlers burned homes and a mosque in at-Tuwani. Residents say it is part of a campaign to push them off their land. At-Tuwani, occupied West Bank – In the village of at-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta, 72-year-old Khadera Ima sleeps on her roof through the hot summer nights. It keeps her cool, she says. On July 18, she climbed up to sleep as usual. Just after midnight, Ima heard shouting below. Looking down, she saw a group of 30 to 40 masked settlers moving through the village. “I saw them set fire to the factory, to the mosque, to homes. They threw petrol and rocks at our house. My son was at the window. It is good they did not kill him,” she told Al Jazeera. From the roof, she watched as they moved between houses, spraying graffiti on walls, setting a neighbour’s car alight and smashing in a front door. “What could I do? Nothing,” Ima said. Downstairs, her daughter-in-law watched settlers throw petrol outside her window. She was two months pregnant. Her family told Al Jazeera she miscarried after the attack. Further down the road, 21-year-old Adam al-Adara was preparing to sleep when he heard the commotion. A football match had ended earlier, and many young men were still outside when messages about the attack began circulating in the local group chat. “When I left the house, honestly it was really scary, seeing houses on fire,” al-Adara said. He joined other residents as they rushed to put out fires with soil and move children deeper into the village, away from where the settlers had reached. “If people do not defend themselves, the settlers will come in and kill them and burn the house they are sitting in,” he said.
The incident lasted about 10 minutes before residents eventually pushed the settlers out, but nobody slept that night, fearing they would return. Days later, the graffiti was still on the walls: a Star of David sprayed on the mosque, and the Hebrew word for “revenge” on the side of a home. A policy of forcible displacement At-Tuwani is a village of just more than 200 residents at the entrance to Masafer Yatta, a cluster of Palestinian herding communities in the South Hebron Hills. It is located in Area C of the occupied West Bank, which is under full Israeli military control. Sami Huraini, a member of the village council and a field researcher documenting settler attacks in the South Hebron Hills, told Al Jazeera that while the violence is not new, the scale and nature of this attack marked a new escalation. Huraini framed it as part of a pattern of Israeli raids, demolition orders, land confiscation, and incursions meant to drive Palestinians from their land, with Israeli settlers and the military all part of the same system. “We see the mentality of the settlers,” he said, describing how many of the same individuals he grew up watching intimidate and harass his community later return in military uniform. Human rights organisations have documented a pattern of settler impunity, arguing that state policies, military protection, and lack of accountability have allowed attacks against Palestinians to continue. Huraini added that the pressure extends beyond physical attacks and into Israel’s legal and planning systems. One example, he said, is the near impossibility for Palestinians to obtain building permits, leaving homes and other structures vulnerable to demolition.
The BriefWire