Israeli settler attacks fuel the fire as Gaza war rages
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[November 02, 2023]
By John Davison
QUSRA, West Bank (Reuters) - Mourning his father and brother, Mohammed
Wadi says armed Israeli settlers from outposts overlooking his
olive-growing West Bank village no longer aim low when they shoot at
Palestinian neighbours. "Now, they shoot to kill," he said.
Violence in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, already at a more than
15-year high this year, surged further after Israel hurtled into a new
war in the separate enclave of Gaza in response to Palestinian militant
group Hamas unleashing the deadliest day in Israel's history on Oct. 7.
Days later, on Oct. 12, Wadi's father and brother were shot dead when
armed Israeli settlers and soldiers stopped a funeral cortege for three
other Palestinians killed by settlers the day before, two Reuters
witnesses and three other people present said. It was one of the more
than 170 attacks on Palestinians involving settlers recorded by the U.N.
since the Hamas rampage.
"Arabs and Jews used to throw stones at each other. Settlers my age now
all seem to have automatic weapons," said Wadi, 29, in the olive-growing
village of Qusra. And while a decade ago armed settlers would fire their
weapons to scare or injure villagers during confrontations,
increasingly, shootings were deadly, he said.
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Reuters could not definitively establish who shot the Wadis. Palestinian
officials who investigated the funeral killings said the gunfire
appeared to come from settlers rather than soldiers, a view supported by
the three other people present.
Shira Liebman, head of the Yesha Council, the main West Bank settlers
organisation, told Reuters that settlers were not involved in the
killings and were not targeting Palestinians.
Israel's hard-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of
at least two senior government ministers living in the settlements, said
he had ordered the purchase of 10,000 rifles to arm Israeli civilians,
including settlers, after Hamas' attack.
Ben-Gvir's office did not respond to a request for comment about whether
guns had already been distributed in the West Bank. He said on Twitter
on Oct. 11 that 900 assault rifles had been handed out in areas to the
north of the West Bank, close to Lebanon, and that thousands more would
soon be distributed.
Vigilante-style settler attacks have killed 29 people this year
according to the U.N. Humanitarian Affairs Office, OCHA. At least eight
of those were since Oct 7. alone, worrying ordinary Palestinians,
Israeli security experts and Western officials.
Washington has condemned settler attacks on Palestinians in the West
Bank while the European Union on Tuesday denounced "settler terrorism"
that risked a "dangerous escalation of the conflict."
Daily settler attacks have more than doubled, the U.N. figures show,
since Hamas, which controls the coastal enclave of Gaza to Israel's
southwest, killed 1,400 Israelis and took more than 200 hostage. Israel
has since bombed and invaded Gaza, killing nearly 9,000 Palestinians.
While Hamas tightly controls besieged Gaza, the West Bank is a complex
patchwork of hillside cities, Israeli settlements and army checkpoints
that split Palestinian communities.
Hamas cited Israeli actions in the West Bank, core to a would-be
Palestinian state, in waging its killing spree.
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FUNERAL KILLINGS
After settlers shot dead three Palestinians at an olive grove near Qusra
on Oct. 11, Mohammed's brother Ahmed and father Ibrahim saw it as their
duty to greet the funeral procession as it brought the bodies back from
a nearby hospital, he said.
Wadi's father was shot through the torso, his brother through the neck
and chest, after the armed settlers, in the presence of uniformed
soldiers, blocked the cortege at a roadside, the five witnesses said.
"It was gunfire from settlers," Abdullah Abu Rahma, who works for the
Palestinian government's Settlement and Wall Resistance Commission said.
The Israeli military said it tried to disperse clashes between Israelis
and Palestinians on the day and that the incident was being
investigated. Settlement official Liebman denied settler involvement in
the killings, while one local Hebrew-language social media page that
backs settler activists said the Israeli military had fired on the Wadis.
"We've had more than our share of brutal terrorist attacks. We're facing
an enemy who wants to destroy us," settlement leader Liebman told
Reuters, echoing widespread security fears among Israelis following the
Hamas incursion.
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Liebman said "local security teams" were equipped to protect Jewish
communities.
Since the Oct. 7 rampage, visible support for Hamas has grown among
Palestinians in the West Bank, including in areas where the Islamist
group has not traditionally been strong.
This year was already the deadliest in at least 15 years for West
Bank residents, with some 200 Palestinians and 26 Israelis killed,
according to United Nations data. But just in the three weeks since
the Oct 7 attack, another 121 West Bank Palestinians have been
killed.
Clashes with soldiers have caused most deaths.
However, the actions of Israeli extremists further fuel Palestinian
resentment that observers say risks erupting into more armed action.
The Israeli military said it was trying to stem violence and protect
Palestinian civilians. "It hurts security here. These ... incidents
create more clashes, and it's people who have taken the law into
their own hands," a spokesperson said in response to Reuters
questions about settler attacks.
'GREAT DANGER'
Settler-related violence is becoming harder to stem with the ongoing
Gaza war and the augmented power of far-right politicians, Israeli
security experts say.
"There's a great danger (from) extreme right activists in the West
Bank," said Lior Akerman, a former officer in Israel's Shin Bet
internal security service.
Settlers are using the deployment of soldiers to Gaza and northern
Israel, where troops are fighting Lebanese Hezbollah, to wage
unimpeded attacks, he said. "The army is now even busier, which
allows (settlers) to operate freely.
"They also receive support from representatives of the government
... which makes it difficult for security organisations," he added.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed extreme right-wing
ministers, including Ben-Gvir, as part of his cabinet last year to
secure another term.
A senior Israeli government official, who declined to be named,
said: "Sporadic Palestinian terrorism (in the West Bank) is what
makes things more difficult to keep under control."
In a sign the settler incidents are worrying the Israeli security
establishment, the defence ministry this week ordered the
administrative detention of Ariel Danino, a prominent settler
activist on state security grounds, an action usually aimed at
Palestinian activists.
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'GIVE US GUNS'
Wadi's family is plugged into the local community. He says the
family eschews armed action and has watched settler hostilities
rise.
He works for a Palestinian government body that monitors soldier and
settler violence.
His father, Ibrahim, was a local official who tried to mediate
between Israeli and Palestinian authorities to reduce violence and
was disliked by radical settlers, Wadi said.
Akerman said settler violence risked provoking armed action by a new
generation of Palestinian militants that have emerged in the West
Bank. One, The Lion's Den, urged attacks on Israel on Tuesday.
A Reuters witness said that at the funeral that finally took place
after the Wadis were killed on Oct. 12, Palestinian gunmen perched
on a roof watching proceedings, apparently on the look out for
settler violence.
So far there has been no major action as Israel's military chokes
Palestinian movement throughout the West Bank and detains hundreds
of men.
In Qusra last week, Wadi sat below a poster commemorating his
brother and father and scanned his phone for death threats against
local Palestinians on Hebrew-language social media pages.
He said he felt surrounded. A fortress-like settlement ringed by a
large wall looms opposite Qusra, and two others squat on hills above
the village's olive groves.
Abdullah, a local resident who gave only his first name, expressed
more anger. "I'm prepared to pick up a gun. If only someone would
give us some," he said.
(Additional reporting by Emily Rose in Jerusalem, Ali Sawafta in
Ramallah; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)
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