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Photo:
Scene. Published by IMEMC News

The car torched at the village of Turmussya, on Sunday.

The aftermath of an arson attack by Israeli settlers on a Palestinian house and car in Turmus Aya, occupied West Bank. (Yesh Din) Published by 972May
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by IMEMC News
Jan 29, 2023

On Sunday dawn, illegal Israeli colonizers uprooted at least 200 olive saplings and burnt six cars in Aqraba and Majdal Bani Fadel, south of Nablus, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.

Salah Jaber, the Mayor of Aqraba, said the colonizers invaded Palestinian orchards in Aqraba and Majdal Bani Fadel and uprooted 200 olive saplings.

The attack came just hours after the colonizers carried out at least 144 attacks against the Palestinians, their homes, lands, and other property in the villages and towns of Huwwara, Madama, Jorish, and Majdal Bani Fadel.
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via Twitter

Jalal
@JalalAK_jojo
Settlers are again attacking Jalud village south of Nablus, for the SECOND NIGHT in a row.

It is, as if, someone allows those pogroms to happen, again and again?
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Jalal
@JalalAK_jojo
Last night, 144 settler attacks were recorded south of Nablus, where settlers smashed 120 vehicles, burned six vehicles Majdal Bani Fadel, & attacked 22 shops in Huwara.

Also, they torched the car & home of Awad Jbara in Turmos Ayya, as seen below]
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Since Friday Terror Attack: 35 Suspected Revenge Crimes Against Palestinians

After last week's shooting attacks in East Jerusalem which followed the deadly IDF raid in Jenin, Israeli Police are investigating these incidents as revenge attacks by settlers, but have made no arrests so far

by Hagar Shezaf for Haaretz
Jan 30, 2023

A car was set on fire, and an inscription reading "Jews wake up" was spray-painted Sunday night in the Palestinian village of Jalud as part of a wave of suspected revenge crimes against Palestinians following last weekend's string of shooting attacks in East Jerusalem and West Bank.

Since Friday, Israel has recorded 35 cases of nationalist crimes targeted at Palestinians in the West Bank, including of throwing stones at cars and vandalizing property, mostly in the Binyamin region north of Jerusalem. No arrests were made in any of the cases.

Police opened an investigation and suspect that Jewish settlers set fire to the vehicle. The village of Jalud, situated near the Shiloh outpost, has often been the target of nationalist crimes by settlers over the years.

Also on Sunday night, stones were thrown at Palestinian vehicles on the road leading to the town of Rawabi, for the second night in a row.

On Saturday night, six cars were torched in the village of Majdal Bani Fadil, where stones where also hurled towards an ambulance. Palestinian media also reported that a vegetable stand was damaged in the Jordan valley, but Israeli security sources said they were not familiar with the case.

Police investigating these incidents as potential revenge crimes after seven people were killed in a shooting attack outside a synagogue in East Jerusalem on Friday evening, followed by another shooting in Jerusalem by a 13-year-old Palestinian who wounded two people.

The recent attacks underscore a cycle of violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories that has accelerated after Israeli forces killed ten Palestinians in clashes that ensued a raid in Jenin on Thursday.

Following the deadly raid, in which Israeli forces attempted to arrest suspects in planning terror attacks, the Palestinian Authority announced it was halting its security coordination with Israel.
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‘Like a nightmare’: 48 hours of Israeli settler terror

Exacting revenge for Jerusalem attacks, settlers across the West Bank set a house ablaze, attacked medical personnel, and erected a new outpost.

by Orly Noy for 972mag
January 31, 2023

Jewish terrorism has been rampaging throughout the occupied West Bank since a Palestinian shooting attack in the East Jerusalem settlement of Neve Ya’akov on Friday night, only a day after a deadly Israeli military raid in the Jenin refugee camp. In the 48 hours since the killing in Jerusalem, Palestinian sources reported more than a hundred cases of “price tag” attacks by Israeli settlers, many at which Israeli soldiers were present but did not intervene. Yet unlike with the Jerusalem attack, no government minister left their home in the middle of a family meal to console the victims; no Knesset member called for sealing the homes of the assailants; and no emergency cabinet meetings were held to address the alarming events.

While human rights organizations that track incidents of settler violence are still trying to get a handle on the flow of testimonies and reports, they are steadily confirming that the high numbers of attacks do appear to be accurate. Below is just a small sample of confirmed attacks documented by the NGO Yesh Din on the night between Saturday and Sunday:

In the late hours of the night, Israeli settlers ambushed Palestinian cars between the villages of Al-Mughayyir and Turmus Aya, throwing stones and damaging property. According to witnesses, it was a miracle that there were no casualties. Close to midnight, a large number of settlers also attacked the village of Qusra near Nablus, threw stones at houses, and caused serious damage to property.

Near the villages of Aqraba and Majdal Bani Fadil, which are also close to Nablus, dozens of Israelis have set up a new settlement outpost. Attacking and wounding the Palestinian landowners as they came to their land, the settlers set fire to three Palestinian vehicles, attacked an ambulance, and wounded a medic who ran to give first aid to the landowners.

In the northern Jordan Valley, close to the village of Al-Auja, settlers caused serious damage to greenhouses and fields belonging to Palestinians. In Huwara, a town near Nablus, settlers threw stones at houses during the night. The same occurred in Sinjil, near Ramallah, where settlers also damaged dozens of trees on the village’s lands.

The violence continued into Monday, when settlers attacked the village of Jalud, south of Nablus, during the day. They set fire to a car, and spray painted “price tag” and “Jews wake up” on a wall in the village. According to residents’ testimonies, soldiers present at the scene did nothing to stop the pogrom.

‘Every house has become a target’
One of the most serious attacks occurred on Saturday night in the village of Turmus Aya, where several settlers set fire to a house. Luckily, the house was empty at the time, averting a major tragedy akin to the infamous burning of the Dawabsheh family in Duma in July 2015.

The small village north of Ramallah is known for having some of the most beautiful houses between the river and the sea. Due to historical circumstances of migration and return, most of its Palestinian residents also hold U.S. citizenship, including the owner of the house that was set on fire. But holding an American passport offers no insurance against settler crimes.

Said Hussein is a veteran resident who also holds American citizenship. A landowning farmer, he fought for years against Israel’s seizure of his land for the benefit of the outposts and settlements in the vicinity. The largest of these is Shiloh, to which was added Amihai — a settlement built in 2017 for settlers evicted from the Amona outpost in 2014, following a Supreme Court ruling. The outposts of Adei Ad, Geulat Zion, and others were also built in the vicinity of Turmus Aya.

“They come at night, like a nightmare, while people are sleeping,” Hussein said of the settlers in fluent American English. “Last Saturday, they arrived at 1 a.m. Everyone was asleep in their houses. Someone saw the fire and called the residents, and all the villagers rushed there. We didn’t see the settlers, but in the camera footage you can see how many of them there were.”

Hussein stressed that it was a miracle that the family was not at home at the time of the arson. Perhaps because of this, the settlers returned to the village the following night to finish the job. “They attacked another house on Sunday,” he said. “They tried to set this one on fire too, but the residents arrived quickly and stopped them. That’s two nights in a row.

“The worst thing is that they’ve now started entering the village itself,” Hussein continued. “In the past they would set fire to trees and uproot them, but outside the village. We have a long history of facing settler violence and land grabbing, but now we have lost the sense of security inside our own homes. The feeling is that every house has become a target.”

A question about contacting the Israeli police made Hussein laugh. “Every time settlers attack, the police close the complaint due to an ‘unknown attacker.’ But the soldiers are all over this area all the time. They know the settlers well. How are our attackers unknown?”

Indeed, it is impossible to understand the reality in the West Bank without talking about the depth of the cooperation between the Israeli army and the settlers in the territory. The same army that knows very well how to invade Palestinian homes in the middle of the night, and drag small children from their beds over accusations of throwing a stone at an armored military jeep, suddenly becomes wilfully blind and deaf when it comes to Jewish terrorism.

The recent settler violence is in many ways a continuation of the army’s institutionalized violence, which made 2022 the deadliest year in the West Bank in nearly two decades. Judging by this past month — in which the army has already killed on average more than one Palestinian a day — 2023 could be even bloodier and deadlier.

A version of this article first appeared in Hebrew on Local Call. Read it here.

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