The day Israeli settlers lynched two young men in the West Bank

Al Jazeera

2 days ago

A mob of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians who were out among their olive groves. Two young men were killed, tens were injured.
Mazraa, occupied West Bank - Kamel Musallet was at home in Florida, United States, when he last spoke to his son Sayfollah (Saif), who was visiting their ancestral hometown of al-Mazaraa ash-Sharqiyah (Mazraa) in the occupied West Bank.
Saif, 20, was in high spirits, telling Kamel he might have found the woman he wanted to marry and talking about how to start the arrangements.
Four days later, Kamel woke up the morning of July 11 to a call from his younger son, Muhammad, 18, telling him that settlers had attacked Saif.
At the time, Saif was lying on the ground near an oak tree where he had hidden to get away from rampaging settlers; he was unconscious and having trouble breathing.
By the time Saif had been carried to an ambulance, he was dead.
Saif's friend, 23-year-old Muhammad "Rizik" al-Shalabi from Mazraa, was found later in the night - shot, beaten, tortured and left to die of his wounds.
Al Jazeera spoke with witnesses, victims, town officials, first aid responders, and search and rescue volunteers.
This is the story of how Saif and Rizik were lynched by a mob of Israeli settlers.
On July 11, after the noon Dhuhr prayer, Saif, Rizik, and about a half dozen friends decided to go to al-Baten to hang out in one of their family's groves.
Al-Baten is the expansive, hilly area of olive groves between Mazraa and the neighbouring town of Sinjil, dotted with about 45 holiday homes largely owned by Palestinian Americans from the surrounding towns. (Al Jazeera)
Several of the young men were still in their prayer clothes when they parked at the bottom of the hill leading up from Sinjil to al-Baten on the hot July day - they were only planning to stay for a little while.
The friends were hanging out, joking and laughing, when at about 2:15pm they were approached by about a dozen settlers, many armed with clubs or sticks, and some with guns.
The settlers began to throw rocks at the boys, as videos from that day showed. Another video by Israeli far-right settler Elisha Vered suggested that rocks were thrown by some of the Palestinian young men in response.
The young men began to run, trying to escape the violent settlers, who called other settlers to join them.
Thus started an attack that unfolded over several hours, drawing in some 70 settlers who chased and attacked everyone they could find in al-Baten, injuring 50 people and killing two.
There were 1,449 settler attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2024.
In 2023, 863 incidents were recorded between January and October 7, followed by an additional 428 attacks in the less than three months that followed the start of Israel's war on Gaza.
In the first half of 2025, there were 759 attacks documented. (Al Jazeera)
Saif was born on July 28, 2004, in Tampa, Florida, United States, to a family of US citizens.
He lived in Florida until the third grade, when the family moved to Mazraa in 2012, moving into a neighbourhood known as 'Little America', lined with large houses owned by Palestinian American families.
Growing up, Saif became known among family and friends for being the fun one, always making people laugh. Saif visits a beach with his aunt, Nihad [Courtesy of family]
Ten years later, after Saif graduated from high school around the corner from the family home in Mazraa, he moved back to Tampa to run the family's new business: an ice cream shop called Ice Screamin.
An emotionally exhausted Kamel described his eldest as a respectful son who worked hard.
'Every time people gave positive [customer] reviews, he would send it to me,' he said, standing outside their Mazraa home.
'I told you! I told you!' Saif would tell his father. 'I'm the best one at customer service.'
After working six days a week for more than a year, Saif wanted to return to the occupied West Bank for a two-month visit.
He arrived in early June, while Kamel returned to Florida to keep the business running. Kamel with Saif in an undated photo [Courtesy of family]
Saif wanted to use the time to relax, reconnect with his mother and siblings, as well as with his friends in town.
Like his friend Rizik, who had graduated from the same high school and was a known athlete and long jumper. Both boys grew up as devout Muslims.
Saif was also hoping he would meet someone he could marry, encouraged by the number of his friends getting engaged.
On the day of the attack, the friends separated in a panic, chased by the armed settlers, one of whom had opened fire in their direction.
As the group began to run east towards Highway 60 and Mazraa, Rizik and three other young men ended up veering north, while Saif and the others went south.
But several pick-up trucks, each with three or four settlers, came down Highway 60 and roared onto the lands of al-Baten, leaving the group trapped between settlers chasing them from above and settlers in trucks on the road below.
Two vehicles driven by settlers chased and rammed two of the boys.
By 2:30pm, villagers had received beseeching messages from the hunted Palestinians and came to the dirt road leading to al-Baten to try to help.
But a military drone flew over, releasing tear gas onto the villagers, then an Israeli army vehicle arrived, its soldiers throwing additional tear gas canisters at them.
'At that moment, we didn't know what the injuries were,' recalled Motaz Tafsha, the mayor of Sinjil. 'Who was wounded? What was the damage? Is anyone alive? We don't know.' (Al Jazeera)
Rizik ran on. Next to him was a young man who spoke to Al Jazeera later, requesting anonymity for his safety.
He said Rizik fell while jumping over a stone wall, hurting his legs, but that when they saw two boys who needed help, Rizik joined the young man in carrying them to safety.
But then Rizik and his friend found themselves surrounded by settlers.
They ran, but just as he dove for cover in the bushes, the friend saw a settler shoot Rizik in the chest.
'The settlers started shouting: 'Yes! I got you!'' he recalled, describing how several settlers gathered around Rizik as he lay on the ground.
At about the time of the shooting, Rizik had called his family, but the family told others the call lasted only seconds, with no response from Rizik, although they heard shouts in Hebrew in the background.
Rizik's friend ran for his life down the side of the mountain, heading east.
At 3:18pm, he sent a panicked voice message to local WhatsApp groups, begging for help: 'Someone's been martyred!' he beseeched.
[Audio]: Witness to Muhammad Rizik al-Shalabi's shooting, believing he's been killed and sending a voice message calling for help.
Later reconstructions estimated that Rizik may have still been alive at the time, but he was dead by the time search parties were able to access the area to look for him.
Meanwhile, Saif and others were running for their lives further south, headed towards Ain al-Sarara.
As family members confirmed to Al Jazeera, one of those young men was caught along the way and tied up by a gang of about nine settlers.
Witnesses say the settlers repeatedly smashed the young man in the knee with their weapons, then dragged him, tied up, into a car and shot bullets all around him.
Then they threw him to the ground over and over, until the young man was begging them to kill him.
'They said: 'I'm not going to kill you,'' a friend recalled on TikTok. ''I'm going to chop off your arms and your legs and throw you on the side of the road like a dog.''
According to Sinjil activist Ayed Ghafari, among the settlers was Yahariv Mangory, reportedly the leader of the outpost builders in al-Baten, who was carrying an M16 rifle.
Mangory later identified himself in an interview with Israel's Channel 14 as the 'owner' of the al-Baten outposts. (Al Jazeera)
Saif and the others had managed to go up a hill, but at about 3:30pm, they were met by a group of settlers coming downhill and attacked them from above, according to Ghafari, who spoke with the young men.
The settlers were pelting the young men with rocks, with occasional bullets zooming past them as they made their way down the hill.
A settler hit Saif square in the back with a rock, toppling him. He was instantly surrounded by a group of settlers who beat him with clubs and sticks all over, according to witnesses.
Dazed, Saif staggered to his feet after the settlers stopped beating him, heading south down the hill until he came across a big oak tree where a young Palestinian man was hiding.
Battered, he sank to the ground there for the next two and a half hours as the young man tried to reach out to people from Mazraa, asking for help.
Saif was vomiting and struggling to breathe, his condition worsening by the minute.
That was when Muhammad caught word that his big brother was in trouble. (Al Jazeera)
Palestinian ambulances were trying to reach al-Baten as early as 2:45pm, as news of what was happening got out, but they found their access blocked by both Israeli settlers and soldiers.
Mayor Tafsha was coordinating with the military liaison very soon after the attacks began, requesting permission from the Israeli army to bring ambulances to al-Baten.
The army conveyed permission for ambulances to enter the area, yet one of them was attacked on the road.
As the ambulance approached, settlers in a pick-up truck going the other way on Highway 60 threw stones at it, damaging the windshield.
The team stopped to assess the damage, only to have another truck of settlers break through the back windshield and vandalise it.
At about 3:30pm, Tafsha recalled seeing settlers near al-Baten attacking a group of Palestinian teenagers and blocking the entry of arriving ambulances.
Then, despite the military liaison's permission, the army also blocked the ambulances from entering al-Baten, delaying their entrance until they were let through at about 4pm.
Within 10 minutes, the ambulance found the young man whose knee had been shattered by the settlers, took him back to town so he could be transferred to the Istishari Hospital near Ramallah. Then it returned just before 5pm to pick up another injured man.
When the ambulances tried to come back again, the military stopped them for about 40 minutes, according to Tafsha, who was there at the time.
'And then a young man came out to us and said: 'Hey, I have someone with me who is in danger, [he's] suffocating … unable to breathe,' recalled Tafsha.
When Muhammad heard his brother was in trouble, he and a friend set out to find him, determined to get through the rampaging settlers and Israeli soldiers.
Another group of young men had headed out a little earlier, also to find Saif, worried by the pleas for help that were coming from the young man under the oak tree.
Separately, the two groups trekked about eight kilometres (five miles) until they found Saif, arriving within about 20 minutes of each other, with Muhammad and his friend arriving last, at 5:20pm.
Once they got there, they could do nothing other than wait and hope that an ambulance would arrive soon. The terrain was too rough for them to try to move Saif, as they weren't sure what his condition was, and even if they were to try to move him, they didn't know which direction was safe.
It was only later that an ambulance crew was able to walk across the rough terrain to reach the oak tree with the worried young men huddled around an unconscious Saif.
It was about 6:05pm when they loaded him onto a stretcher, and the group walked the 20 minutes back to the ambulance waiting on the nearest road.
By the time they reached the ambulance, Saif had died.
It was then that Muhammad called his father.
'I don't know how to tell you this,' an emotional Muhammad told his father, 'but your son, my brother, is gone.
"I've seen his last breath.'
Saif was brought to the clinic in Sinjil.
While there, Tafsha received a call from Rizik's mother, who said he was missing.
Tafsha contacted the Palestinian liaison, who checked with the Israeli army, which in turn told the liaison that it had detained Rizik.
But reports were coming in from witnesses to the settlers shooting Rizik earlier in the day, and Tafsha relayed that information to the liaison.
The response came through from the Israeli army: in fact, they had detained someone else, not Rizik.
In speaking with Al Jazeera, Ghafari called this kind of confusion over Rizik's identity as being a case of 'dirty tricks' from the Israeli army.
'I immediately asked the liaison that we go out and look for him,' recalled Tafsha. 'And I told all the young guys to go out with me and wait for permission [from the military liaison] to search.'
It was dark already by the time the search started, led by Rizik's friend who saw his shooting.
Rizik's body was found at about 10pm.
The first man to see Rizik's body, who also wished to remain unidentified, said it was clear that he had been badly beaten by settlers - his hand was clenched and his arm contorted.
The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, called Kamel to offer his condolences and said he would ask Israel to launch investigations into what happened.
'I know I'm not going to get justice,' said Kamel outside their family home.
'But if we can stop the Israeli settler extremism, and the vandalism and violence … I just want to save [al-Baten].'
According to The Times of Israel, six settlers were arrested for the incident, though no follow-up was offered.
'I expect that there won't be any results,' said Tafsha of the investigations. 'In the end, they will come up with a million reasons for barbaric and terrorist actions against our country.'
Instead, residents told Al Jazeera later, Israel detained three activists and a boy from Mazraa. Soldiers pulled one of the activists out of an ambulance, detained him, then released him later.
Having no faith in the Israeli justice system, Kamel is calling for the US Department of State to launch an investigation itself.
The July 11 lynching was the culmination of an escalation in settler encroachment on Sinjil lands that had taken place in the last three months. In April, the first of three settler outposts was built in al-Baten, and settler attacks ensued immediately.
Between January 2024 and June 2025, at least 35,969 Palestinians were displaced across the occupied West Bank.
The vast majority - 29,338 people, or 82 percent - flee violent Israeli military raids.
An additional 2,825 (8 percent) were displaced due to home demolitions and 1,133 (3 percent) as a result of settler violence.
Some 2,673 (7 percent) people lost their houses because Israel said they did not have building permits, which are known to be nearly impossible to get if you're Palestinian.
Sinjil, Mazraa and al-Baten are split between Areas A, B and C. Area A, according to the Oslo Accords, is under the Palestinian Authority's security and civil control, while Area B is under Palestinian civil and Israeli military control and Area C is under full Israeli military control.
The initial attacks that day occurred in Area A, according to locals.
The vast majority of illegal settlements and outposts, and attacks on Palestinians by the settlers living there, are in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control.
Since April, Israeli settlers have been prowling the land, attacking Palestinian villagers with sticks or weapons and setting Palestinian groves on fire.
Today, much of the fertile land on al-Baten's rolling hills stands blackened and untended, its owners afraid to go there. (Al Jazeera)