Videos have recently resurfaced showing the results of Israeli settler attacks in the occupied West Bank, since October of last year, displaying that aggression committed by those Israel considers to be of its civilian population, somewhat match the spirit of the horrifying atrocities we currently see being carried out by the Israeli military in Gaza. Yet arson attacks, specifically targeting Palestinian children, are not new and are not the result of a few rogue settlers either.
Acts of Israeli settler aggression in the West Bank have surged since the beginning of the war in Gaza last October, with more than 530 Palestinians killed inside the occupied territory alone since then, making this period the most violent in the West Bank since the early 2000’s. While the majority of the deaths have come as a result of the Israeli army, the US government has attempted to single out individual Israeli settlers for the violence that is occurring and has even placed sanctions on some individuals. However, the West Bank settlers are protected by the Israeli military and some army officers are even settlers themselves, who actively participate in the violent attacks frequently carried out against Palestinian villages.
When the war in Gaza began, Israeli State-backed settler groups calling themselves “defence squads” began what would become the complete ethnic cleansing of 16 Palestinian communities in the South al-Khalil Hills area. This later extended to a broader campaign that expelled residents from villages north of Ramallah and was done using tactics such as arson, in addition to indiscriminate machine gun fire at residents. On October 9, the video of a young Palestinian boy who was severely burned by settlers in the South al-Khalil Hills area went viral on social media, which has recently resurfaced, rightly causing an uproar. These settlers, despite attempts to portray them as rogue and acting independent of the state, are backed by organizations like Regavim and others that receive direct funding from the Israeli government.
Palestinian boy found with burns in Al-Khalil/Hebron
It is believed this young Palestinian child was burned by Israeli settlers in Al-Khalil earlier today. pic.twitter.com/1a9XjpqHuZ
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) October 9, 2023
Not only this, last year it was revealed by an investigative piece published by +972 Mag, that the Israeli military had formed an army unit named the “Desert Frontier“, which is composed of extremist settlers. These settlers belonged to the infamous Hilltop Youth, a settler group that was long considered to be committing terrorism and was later infiltrated by Israeli military operatives, after it had directed attacks against soldiers who prevented them from carrying out unhinged attacks on Palestinian civilians. What this proved, is the interconnectivity between settler vigilantism and the state-enforced military occupation inside the West Bank.
Israeli Settlers Burn Palestinian Alive
Arson is perhaps the most horrifyingly potent tool in the arsenal of Israeli settler and has frequently been used to carry out pogroms against Palestinian communities, which has especially escalated since 2022. Smaller scale settler attacks culminated in a massive assault on the Palestinian town of Huwara, in February of 2023, when hundreds of armed settler stormed the Palestinian community under the protection of Israeli soldiers and set fire to hundreds of homes and cars, also murdering a Palestinian man and injuring over 100. Prior to the event, the Israeli Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, had encouraged support for the settlers who had organized the pogrom via Whatsapp groups online, while Israel’s Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, commented afterwards that “Huwara needs to be erased“. The burning of villages in this manner did not end there and has periodically occurred since.
Israeli settlers, considered by Tel Aviv to be “civilians”, have not just carried out arson attacks like this in the West Bank either. Settlers have consistently attempted to burn down both Palestinian Mosques and Churches. In 2010 for instance, a church built in 1897 in Jerusalem was badly damaged after Israeli settler threw molotov cocktails at it, a trend that started in the early 2000’s. Even outside of Jerusalem, in 2006 an Israeli couple tried to firebomb an ancient church in Nazareth, the city where Christians believe Jesus lived. An Israeli court which tried the case failed to convict the couple of any charges. In 2020 another major attack happened, when an Israeli settler tried to burn down the Gethsemane Church in Jerusalem but was stopped in the process by Palestinians. In 2023 Israelis escalated attacks on churches in Jerusalem, Haifa and the West Bank as well.
In 2014, Israeli settlers also kidnapped a 16-year-old Palestinian, Mohammed Abu Khdeir, in occupied Jerusalem and his remains were later found burned. A group of Israelis had dragged the teenager into a car, then taken him to a separate location to beat him severely with sticks and poured gasoline over his body, some reports say they forced him to drink the gasoline, before burning him alive.
Perhaps the most horrifying case of arson occurred in the West Bank village of Duma, in 2015. Israeli settlers stormed the village at night and targeted the home of the Dawabsheh family, barricading all exits and throwing molotov cocktails through the windows. The attack burned to death an 18-month old baby and his two parents, leaving only 4-year-old Ahmad Dawabsheh alive and suffering from critical wounds. I actually visited little Ahmad back in 2017, who had been subjected to numerous other attempts to burn him to death since, after settlers warned that he should be killed to stop him from growing up to be a “terrorist”. Ahmad’s body is covered in the scars of his severe burns and I remember trying to hold back my own emotions when playing football (soccer) with him in his grandfather’s back yard, after he failed to be able to pick up the ball due to the condition of his hands.
In response to this horrid attack, a video went viral of a settler wedding in a nearby settlement where the Israelis danced and chanted “Ali is on the grill“, while stabbing photos of the baby that had been burned to death. The lawyer who defended those settlers accused of this act of terrorism, and who was present at that wedding, was no other than the current Israeli Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir. In May, another home was burned down in the village of Duma by armed settlers, but luckily there was no one inside at the time.
In this video Gvir is partying alongside fellow fascists stabbing and burning pictures of a baby who was burned alive by Israeli settlers; the murderer then defended in court by Gvir.
The surviving family were met by dozens chanting “Ali’s dead” “Ali’s on the grill” at court. pic.twitter.com/cT34hqUWlS
— ForgetfuIPerson (@ForgetfuP) May 10, 2024
Burning Palestinians to death and torching entire villages is not a case of “a few bad apples”, these are actions with direct connections to the highest levels of the Israeli government and the military. The cases noted above may list some of the most severe incidents, but barely scratch the surface of Israeli settler arson attacks against Palestinians.
