We need to talk about settler terror

Imagine this: young men come into your neighborhood to light cars and homes on fire, attack residents, and damage essential infrastructure. Now imagine that it happens every few days, each time getting progressively more extreme – and there is nobody that you can call for help. When you do try to call for help, the soldiers that arrive at the scene arrest people from your neighbourhood, while standing by as others continue to attack you. This is not just a thought experiment – it is the daily reality for so many Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

When violent settlers attack Palestinians and force them off their lands with full impunity – it is clear that this is not just a few bad apples or a glitch in the system, it is the system. Settlers terrorize and displace Palestinians, with just enough distance for the government to deny responsibility, while securing the outcome it wants: fewer Palestinians, and more Israeli settlements. This violence isn’t new, but in recent months, it has escalated and become more fatal, more organized, and more protected.

Since the start of this year, there has been a settler attack almost every day somewhere in the West Bank. In Ras Ein al‑Auja, settlers returned again and again – masked and armed –  beating residents and driving families off their land until every Palestinian was forced to flee, and an entire village was ethnically cleansed. In Masafer Yatta, settler attacks are constant: elderly Palestinians beaten unconscious, cars burned, children chased home from school, and activists attacked, while settlers remain protected.

But what do you do when there’s no one to call for help and when the system meant to protect you is the one enabling your attackers? Across the West Bank, that’s the unbearable question facing so many Palestinian communities. Over the past few months, we have been ramping up our protective presence work – bringing more and more activists to Khan al Ahmar, a Bedouin village in the West Bank. Our activists are there to document settler violence, intervene during attacks, and provide support to the community. Protective presence is not the solution to this violent reality, but it is one of the ways that we can fight back against this state-sanctioned terror and stand in solidarity with Palestinians bearing the brunt of the violence of the occupation.

Your support directly helps fund our protective presence work by assisting activists with all of the resources they need to get to the West Bank regularly and ensure that there’s a constant presence in communities under threat of settler terror. Our solidarity and anti-occupation work has never been more urgent — we must mobilize and organize side by side to end settler terror, end the occupation, and build real peace, equality, and justice for all.

Help our protective presence grow

Posted 1 February 2025