Latest news with #MughayyirAlDeir
The Guardian
28-05-2025
- General
- The Guardian
Chased, beaten and robbed: survivors describe Israeli settler violence in West Bank
Survivors of an attack by violent Israeli settlers have described being 'hunted' across a West Bank valley by men armed with pistols, rifles and batons, who beat them so badly that all 10 had to be taken to hospital for their injuries. They included a 14-year-old Palestinian boy, eight other Palestinians and an Israeli activist, who had three cameras, his phone, car keys and wallet stolen. Moments before the attackers reached the activist, Avishay Mohar, he managed to remove and hide memory cards with photos documenting the early stages of the attack. The assailants, some of them masked, descended on Palestinians dismantling the last homes in the village of Mughayyir al-Deir, east of Ramallah. Its residents had all been forced out by Israeli settlers in an aggressive campaign that lasted less than a week. A group, including two men on UK sanctions list had before established an illegal outpost, consisting of just a basic shelter and a sheep pen, barely 100 metres from a Palestinian home. Although settlers have long used illegal outposts to harass and displace Palestinians from their land, setting one up effectively inside a village was unprecedented. Rights groups warned it was a sign of both settler impunity and official tolerance for increasingly open and violent land grabs. Images of the latest violence were later recovered by Mohar, a photographer who works for B'Tselem, one of Israel's most influential human rights groups. 'I went to document the residents fleeing the village,' he told the Guardian. 'Throughout the day, settlers that now live in an outpost located dozens of metres from the village started wandering around provoking the residents.' When the attack began on Saturday, the group of activists called in the police and the army. Within minutes, a military truck arrived, and soldiers moved in to disperse the settlers, eventually persuading them to retreat to their outpost. But once the soldiers had left, the settlers resumed their assault on the Palestinians. They climbed on to the roof of a livestock shed the villagers had been dismantling and began trying to push Palestinians off the structure. 'At that point, the Palestinians tried to defend themselves and the settlers started hitting them, Mohar says. They started throwing stones on both sides. Meanwhile, the settlers started making phone calls. I heard them calling other settlers, telling them that the stones were being thrown at them and to come there quickly.' Moments later, dozens more settlers, some masked, descended on the village aboard trucks and ATVs. Many were carrying batons; others had firearms and rifles. 'Things escalated at that point,' he said. 'One of the Palestinians got hit by a rock in his face and started bleeding. Then I saw a settler that also was hit by something. I didn't know what it was, but he fell on the ground. He had a gun on his belt. Another settler immediately took the gun off his belt and started shooting. It was a pistol.' Palestinians fled alongside the activists, scrambling toward a nearby valley while settlers continued to fire shots and hurl stones. 'My son Omar, who is just 14 years old, was taking videos to document the attack of the settlers,' said Mlehat, 47, one of the Palestinian men. 'The settler used a drone to chase us. They beat my son Omar on the head, he was left more than half an hour bleeding on the scene.' 'They did not shoot in the air,' Mohar said. 'One had a pistol and two were shooting with M16s or other long rifles. Some of us were hit on the way. I was hit by a rock. On the way, two settlers caught me and hit me and stole everything from me. I had three cameras, one video camera. They stole everything and also my backpack. They searched my pants and took my wallet and car keys.' Mohar began to run as settlers kept shooting in his direction. When they reached the main road, Palestinians and activists realised they had been surrounded. 'We had nowhere to go,' Mohar says. 'Those settlers kept shooting at us and telling us to come over to them. We understood that we had nothing to do other than to walk towards them. 'When we got there, the settlers immediately took all of our phones and all the things we had in our pockets and smashed it with rocks. Then they made us all sit on the ground. Both masked and unmasked settlers started hitting us with batons and with rocks. They kicked us while we lay on the ground. I got hit by batons on my head, on my eyes, on my back.' 'I was sure that they were going to kill me because they kept hitting me with batons and kicking me. But then I heard one of the settlers telling his friends – because I'm Jewish and not Palestinian – 'don't kill him, hit him in the balls'. Then they tried to spread my legs and hit me, but I managed to flip on my belly.' The settlers left the injured where they lay and departed before the ambulance arrived. Ten Palestinians were wounded, some with multiple fractures. 'This is all part of a project of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank,' said Mohar. 'It's not done by crazy settlers. It's a state project. The state is informed of everything. If there was a will to stop those attacks, it would have happened in a minute.' Two violent Israeli settlers, Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, who had joined the campaign to drive Palestinians from their homes in Mughayyir al-Deir, had sanctions imposed on them last week by the UK. According to witnesses, they did not take part in the attack. 'We lost 25 houses,' said Mlehat, father of the injured 14-year-old boy. 'The whole community were displaced. Those settlers are terrorists. They pursue ethnic cleansing against us. They don't care if you are a child or a grown-up, they do not discriminate between a man or a woman. All of us are a legitimate target for them. What can we do?' For many of the families forced out, it was a second displacement at the hands of Israelis, as their parents and grandparents had been forced from land near the Israeli city of Be'er Sheva when the state was formed in 1948.
Arab News
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Israeli settlers force Palestinian families to leave village
LONDON: Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank have forced about 150 Palestinians from their village through a violent five-day campaign carried out under the protection of Israeli authorities. Last weekend, the settler group had constructed an illegal outpost close to a Palestinian home in Mughayyir Al-Deir, east of Ramallah, The Guardian reported. The village is home to shepherds and farmers, and by Friday this week dozens of villagers had moved their flocks away and had gathered their belongings to leave the area. 'Settlers stalked between Palestinian men who worked fast and largely in silence, grappling with the grim reality of leaving the place where most were born and grew up,' The Guardian reported. 'A child cried as he was driven away on a truck loaded with the family's red sofas.' Israeli settlers belonging to the extremist group Hilltop Youth celebrated as Palestinian families left the village. The group's unofficial spokesperson, Elisha Yered, said: 'This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken.' Several of the settlers involved in the illegal campaign, including Yered, are subject to UK and EU sanctions. Yered was 'part of a group of armed settlers' that carried out an attack in 2023 that killed Qusai Jammal Mi'tan, a 19-year-old Palestinian, sanctions files show. Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, two Israeli settlers under British sanctions, visited the illegal outpost at Mughayyir Al-Deir this week. The hills surrounding the village are dotted with the ruins of other abandoned Palestinian homes, as settlers have waged a campaign to clear the area of locals. In Mughayyir Al-Deir, Israeli police and military personnel stood guard and patrolled as the settlers began to build the outpost. Zvi Sukkot, a far-right MP who said on TV last week that Israel 'can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares,' visited the village to support the settlers. A Palestinian family from Mughayyir Al-Deir filed a petition in Israel's Supreme Court on Thursday. They demanded an injunction and urgent hearing on the settler campaign, and asked why Israeli authorities had failed to intervene over the illegal outpost and evictions. Many of the Palestinian families forced to leave the village had relatives who were forced to leave Beersheba during the Nakba in 1948, when some 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland. An Israeli military spokesperson said troops worked 'to ensure the security of the state of Israel and Judea and Samaria (Israel's name for the occupied West Bank).' The military will respond to the Palestinian family's petition in court, the spokesperson said. A hearing is scheduled for next week, but all Palestinian families will have left Mughayyir Al-Deir by then.
The Guardian
23-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Israeli settlers force about 150 Palestinians to leave their West Bank village
Violent Israeli settlers including two under UK sanctions have forced about 150 Palestinians to leave their village in the occupied West Bank, through a five-day intimidation campaign carried out under the watch of the Israeli police and army. On Sunday morning, settlers established an illegal outpost, consisting of a basic shelter and a sheep pen, 100 metres from a Palestinian home in Mughayyir al-Deir, east of Ramallah. By Friday, dozens of villagers had already moved their flocks away, packed up their belongings and were dismantling the wooden and metal frames of their houses. Settlers stalked between Palestinian men who worked fast and largely in silence, grappling with the grim reality of leaving the place where most were born and grew up. A child cried as he was driven away on a truck loaded with the family's red sofas. 'We are all leaving,' said one villager, who asked not to be named. Settlers threw stones at some trucks as they left, and celebrated on social media. Elisha Yered, an unofficial spokesperson for the extremist group Hilltop Youth, wrote: 'This is what redemption looks like! This is a relatively large outpost that contained about 150 people from the enemy population, but it was broken.' Yered is subject to sanctions from the UK and the EU, which said he was 'part of a group of armed settlers' involved in an attack in 2023 that led to the death of a 19-year-old Palestinian, Qusai Jammal Mi'tan. Two other settlers under UK sanctions, Neria Ben Pazi and Zohar Sabah, spent time at the illegal outpost this week, and Ben Pazi also worked on building a fence around Palestinian land. Other Bedouin came to help villagers pack up and leave, including some who understood their fear and pain intimately because violent Israeli settlers had also driven them off the land. The tactics used by the settlers this week were not new. The nearby hills are dotted with the ruins of abandoned villages, at least one, Wadi as-Seeq, also targeted by the UK-sanctioned Ben Pazi. Settlers had never before built an outpost so close to Palestinian homes and the speed and intensity of the campaign in Mughayyir al-Deir was a sign of their growing confidence, activists said. Police patrolled through the village on Friday and Israeli soldiers stood nearby. None intervened, although a 'stop work' order had been issued for the illegal outpost after it was thrown up, and several settlers who spent time at it were also known to Israeli authorities for extreme violence. A previous Israeli commander for the central region, Maj Gen Yehuda Fuchs, tried in 2023 to bar Ben Pazi from the West Bank over violent attacks on Palestinians. The only other official Israeli visitor during the week was a far-right member of the Knesset, Zvi Sukkot, who came to back the settlers. Last week, Sukkot said in a TV debate that Israel 'can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares'. One Palestinian family filed a petition with Israel's supreme court on Thursday demanding an injunction and urgent hearing into why the military, police and local authorities did not act to prevent the forced evictions and protect Palestinians. A spokesperson for the Israeli military said troops operated 'to ensure the security of the state of Israel and Judea and Samaria [Israel's name for the occupied West Bank]', and the government directs how the military should enforce orders about illegal construction. The military would respond to the legal petition in court, the spokesperson said. A hearing is scheduled for next week, although by the time judges hear it the village will be empty. For many of the families forced out, their move on Friday was a second displacement at the hands of Israelis, as their parents and grandparents had been forced from land near the Israeli city of Be'er Sheva when the state was formed in 1948.
The Guardian
22-05-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Violent Israeli settlers under UK sanctions join illegal West Bank outpost
Two violent Israeli settlers on whom sanctions were imposed by the UK government this week have joined a campaign to drive Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank village of Mughayyir al-Deir. Neria Ben Pazi's organisation, Neria's Farm, had sanctions imposed by London on Tuesday, as the UK suspended negotiations on a new free-trade deal with Israel over its refusal to allow aid into Gaza and cabinet ministers' calls to 'purify Gaza' by expelling Palestinians. The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, attacked the 'impunity' of violent settlers as he announced sanctions designed to hold them and Israeli authorities to account. 'The Israeli government has a responsibility to intervene and halt these aggressive actions,' he said. Ben Pazi himself was put on the UK sanctions list last year, with the government citing his role building illegal outposts and forcing Palestinian Bedouin families from their homes. This week he made repeated long visits to an illegal outpost set up on Sunday less than 100 metres from a Palestinian home on the edge of Mughayyir al-Deir, a community of around 150 bedouins. Another visitor to the outpost, photographed on Wednesday and identified by local activists, was Zohar Sabah. He visited the day after he was added to the UK sanctions list for 'threatening, perpetrating, promoting and supporting acts of aggression and violence against Palestinian individuals'. The settlers set up a basic shelter next to a sheep enclosure with a small herd, which formed the base for a campaign of intimidation that began immediately. 'I haven't slept since they came, and the children are terrified,' said Ahmad Sulaiman, a 58-year-old father of eleven whose home was closest to the outpost. Born just a stone's throw away, he had spent his life in Mughayyir al-Deir, but by Thursday he was packing to leave, although the family did not know where they would go. 'The settlers told me: 'This is our home',' said Sulaiman. 'There is nothing I can do. They have guns and other weapons.' The intended deterrent effect of the UK sanctions was not visible at Mughayyir al-Deir, where settlers expanded their campaign of intimidation in the days after the British announcement, and the only public response from Israeli officials was a visit in support of the settlers. Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Knesset and the far-right Religious Zionist party, was filmed by activists as he left the illegal outpost. During a debate on Israel's Channel 12 last week Sukkot said: 'Everyone has got used to the idea that we can kill 100 Gazans in one night during a war and nobody in the world cares.' The hills nearby are surrounded by the burned remains of Palestinian villages, whose residents were forced out by campaigns run from similar Israeli outposts. But setting up such a short distance from the Palestinians being targeted is unprecedented. Yonatan Mizrachi, the co-director of Settlement Watch, part of the campaign group Peace Now, said settler outposts had been getting nearer to Palestinian communities since the 7 October Hamas attacks on Israel, 'but I don't remember any others that were established so close'. 'It shows the settlers' lack of fear, and the understanding that they can do what they like; they can just set up in the Palestinian community. And they didn't come to be good neighbours,' Mizrachi added. Sabah was indicted by Israeli authorities in September for his role in an attack on a school in Mu'arrajat East, where settlers targeted teachers, a 13-year-old pupil and the principal, who was hospitalised. Shai Parnes, a spokesperson for the Israeli human rights group B'tselem, said: 'Israeli policy to take as much land as possible hasn't changed. But what has been changing under this current government is the total impunity for soldiers and settlers. 'They used to hide their faces or attack at night, everything is happening much more brutal and violent and it is happening in broad daylight. They are really proud about what they're doing, sometimes even uploading the assaults themselves to social media.' Forced displacement began before the 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent ongoing Gaza war, but has intensified since then. Around 1,200 Palestinians, nearly half of them children, have been forced to leave 20 communities, according to figures from B'tselem. It is a second displacement for families such as Sulaiman's, who lived near what is now the Israeli city of Be'er Sheva until 1948. They were forced out in the nakba, or catastrophe, in which about 700,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes in 1948 after the creation of Israel. Israel's military occupation of the West Bank began in 1967. Around 500,000 Jewish Israelis live in 'over settlements', all illegal under international law. Dozens of small makeshift outposts are also illegal under Israeli law – like the one set up in Mughayyir al-Deir – but authorities rarely try to remove them. Ben Pazi set up his own farm in the area east of Ramallah in 2018 and has been involved in attacks and land grabs in the area for many years, according to the British and US governments. Most use a combination of attacks on people, destruction of property and deployment of herds of sheep and goats to graze land where Palestinians have fed their flocks for decades. The US state department said in 2024, when sanctions were imposed on Ben Pazi under the Biden administration: 'Ben Pazi has expelled Palestinian shepherds from hundreds of acres of land. In August 2023, settlers including Ben Pazi attacked Palestinians near the village of Wadi as-Seeq.' Donald Trump lifted those sanctions. Ben Pazi's violence attracted the attention of Israel's military commander for the region, Maj Gen Yehuda Fuchs, who issued an administrative order barring Ben Pazi from entering the West Bank in late 2023. Ben Pazi's role in the campaign to force Palestinians out of Mughayyir al-Deir was unclear. He hung up when the Guardian called to ask for comment, and did not respond to further messages. The Guardian was unable to contact Sabah. Ben Pazi was a regular visitor to the new outpost, spending several hours there on at least three days this week, according to several Israeli activists who recognised him from work in the region. On one visit he was photographed greeting an unidentified man wearing a military-style uniform. Israel's military did not immediately respond to questions about whether the man was a member of the armed forces, and if so, whether he was at the outpost in an official or personal capacity. Ben Pazi drove a group of settlers and equipment to the edge of the village, where they started erecting a fence around land where Palestinians had lived and farmed for decades. Pardes, of B'tselem, said: 'The international community have so much more to do in terms of directing steps towards the Israeli government. 'What is happening is not just about a violent threat in this place or that; it's all part of a well-defended and subsidised policy run by the government.'
