In April 2024, Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian villages in the West Bank after the disappearance of Israeli teenager Benjamin Achimeir on 12 April 2024, whose dead body was found a day later.[2] In total, 11 Palestinian villages were attacked, four Palestinians were shot dead and thousands of locals' animals were killed, while a dozen homes and over 100 cars were burned.[3]BBC News, citing messages from Israeli settlers' WhatsApp groups and testimony from Palestinian villagers and officials, described the rampage as appearing to be a "organised campaign of revenge … carried out by co-ordinated groups on the ground, and targeted against ordinary Palestinians with no apparent connection to the murder of Benjamin Achimeir other than the bad luck of living nearby."[3]
In late 2022, far-right leaders of the Israeli settlement movement were elected into the government of Israel and appointed as prominent ministers; in early 2023, Israeli settler violence increased, which included the Huwara rampage of February 2023.[4][5] In October 2023, the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war was accompanied by a further escalation in Israeli settler violence in the West Bank.[4][6] After the war began, the settlers "have acted with near-impunity", wrote BBC News in May 2024.[3]
On 12 April 2024, 14-year-old Benjamin Achimeir (Hebrew: בנימין אחימאיר, romanized:Binyamin Achimair) was declared missing after he left a farm near the Israeli outpost of Malachei HaShalom to go shepherding in the West Bank, sparking a 24-hour search by Israeli authorities. The following day, his body was found by a drone near the area he went missing. His death was attributed to blunt trauma, but his body also had stab wounds, according to Israeli authorities.
Israeli authorities ruled the killing as a terrorist attack, attributing it to "one or more Palestinian terrorists". His disappearance sparked Israeli settler rampages in Palestinian villages in the West Bank that escalated after his body was found.
Poster calling to revenge the Killing of Benjamin Achimeir
Palestinian car set on fire by Israeli settlers following the killing, Northern Jordan valley
Israeli settlers began their attacks on 12 April 2024, within hours of Benjamin Achimeir's disappearance.[3] On the morning of 13 April 2024, with Benjamin Achimeir still missing, extremist settler Elisha Yered (a suspect for murder of a Palestinian man) sent a message to a WhatsApp group for Israeli settlers, stating: "the obvious measures have not been taken", and calling for "collective punishment against the murderous Arab population", including "home to home searches" and "crowning" of nearby Palestinian villages to close their entrances and exits, while naming several locations to meet up.[3] This message was then spread among other WhatsApp groups for settlers.[3] Within hours, the settler WhatsApp groups spread a similar message, adding fire emojis.[3] In the groups, individual settlers made demands to "eliminate the enemy" and "exterminate the beasts".[3]
After this, the Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian villages up to 7 kilometers from Benjamin Achimeir's home, and these rampages escalated following the discovery of Achimeir's body.[2][7][3] In response, the IDF deployed extra troops and Border Police to the area.[8] In total, 11 Palestinian villages were attacked, four people and thousands of animals were killed, while a dozen homes and over 100 cars were burned.[3][9] BBC News wrote that the settlers' WhatsApp messages and the testimony of Palestinian officials and affected families "paint a picture of an organised campaign of revenge that was incited in part using WhatsApp, carried out by co-ordinated groups on the ground, and targeted against ordinary Palestinians with no apparent connection to the murder of Benjamin Achimeir other than the bad luck of living nearby."[3]
Despite the religious law Sabbath prohibiting the WhatsApp messages on that day, Elisha Yered and Eitan Rabinovich (founder of an organisation calling for West Bank Palestinians to be boycotted and refused employment) cited Pikuach Nefesh in claiming that Achimeir's disappearance was more important than any religious law.[3] WhatsApp group "Investigating Fear of Kidnapping", comprising over 300 people, urged settlers to set up illegal checkpoints at Palestinian villages and to conduct illegal stops and searches of cars.[3] By the night of 13 April 2024, one administrator of the "Investigating Fear of Kidnapping" group, David Zvi-Atia, called on all members of the group to "erase their messages then get out of this group and hide it in your settings … then get out of this group and hide it in your settings."[3] When BBC News approached Yered, Rabinovich and Zvi-Atia for comment, each of them accused BBC News of antisemitism.[3]
House in Ein al-Hilweh village in Jordan valley following Israeli settlers attack, 13 April 2024
Aftermath of Israeli settler attack on al-Mughayyir. April 2024
On 12 April, during midday, hundreds of Israeli settlers armed with firearms and stones stormed the village of al-Mughayyir, Ramallah, around 500 metres (1,600ft) west of the settlement Achimair was last seen. The settlers were participating in the search for the boy. The head of the village council, Amin Abu Alia, estimated that around 1,000 to 1,200 settlers encircled the village, and around 500 entered. The settlers initially blocked the roads in the area, but then began to attack it, raiding homes and starting fires. Shots were also fired at residents, resulting in clashes. A video showed houses and vehicles in the village on fire. Around 25 people were injured in the attack, and 26-year-old Jehad Abu Alia was killed. It is unclear if his death was caused by settlers or Israeli soldiers.[10][5]
At least eight of the wounded were struck by gunfire. 70 sheep were also reportedly stolen. At around 3:00 pm, the IDF arrived at the scene. According to Abu Alia, the soldiers did not act to prevent the attacks, and instead allowed settlers to raid homes while preventing Palestinians from moving around and blocking ambulances from reaching the injured. The Palestinian Red Crescent said 11 ambulances were dispatched, and several people were wounded by bullet fragments. According to the IDF, security forces were sent to disperse the riots, and rocks were thrown at soldiers, who then responded with live fire. It added that soldiers worked alongside Israel Border Police to remove Israeli settlers who entered the village.[11][12]
settlers attack on a sheep pen in Al-Mughayyir
The following day, dozens of settlers returned to the village, setting 12 houses and several cars ablaze. The Palestinian Health Ministry reported that three people were injured, one critically. Israeli forces used tear gas and rubber bullets against villagers who gathered, in an attempt to disperse them.[9] The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said that settlers opened fire at its workers and set one of their cars ablaze.[13]
In the settler WhatsApp group "Investigating Fear of Kidnapping", when settlers set fire to a garage and another family's home, one group member "Iti'el" messaged: "We need as many adults with vehicles as possible to come out to the road by al-Mughayyir to pick up people running towards the road … There are a bunch of police chasing them. Is the route to Shilo open?"[3]
Abu Falah
On 13 April, at least five Palestinians were reportedly wounded after an Israeli settler attack on the village of Abu Falah, close to Ramallah.[14]
Beitin
In Beitin, a village near Ramallah, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that 17-year-old Omar Hameed died from his wounds hours after being shot by settlers. The Palestinian Red Crescent said that at least 20 others were wounded, and a photographer for the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, was also assaulted by settlers, some of whom were wearing military costumes.[13]
Duma
At least four Palestinians were wounded when Israeli settlers raided the village of Duma. During the raid, several houses and at least 40 cars were set ablaze.[15] Shaul Golan, an Israeli photographer and journalist for Ynet, was beaten by settlers while covering the attack. He suffered a broken hand and his equipment was destroyed.[16] Some of the settlers were masked, while others wore military uniforms. In an interview, Golan said that he begged who he thought were soldiers to help him, but then realized that they were not soldiers and were working with the settlers.[17]
The head of the Duma village council, Suleiman Dawabsha, told reporters that around 300 Israeli soldiers stormed the village along with hundreds of settlers. The IDF did not make a statement regarding the claim. A resident of the village whose home was set on fire said that soldiers were present but did not stop the attack. The attack mirrored a similar incident in 2015, when an extremist settler set a house ablaze in the village, killing three and injuring one.[18]
Duma Junction was one of the places identified by settlers to meet at while urging "collective punishment of the murderous Arab population"; within hours the settlers attacked and burned at least one home.[3] By the afternoon of 13 April 2024, the settlers' WhatsApp group "Investigating Fears of Kidnapping" showed messages that Duma was "full of security forces … We were chased by soldiers. What's the plan? Where should we go? Let us know", while another message identified a location to meet at.[3] Tali Dahan, who had claimed online to work for the Israeli police, questioned in the group why settlers were being arrested in Duma, with Dahan proclaiming: "Let all of Duma burn … Make them afraid, those beasts. Exterminate them."[3]
Haaretz staff went to Duma on 13 April 2024, describing that "as the riots were still going on, a number of [Israeli] settlers could be seen leaving the village toward the main road where soldiers and Border Police officers were stationed. The settlers then got in their cars and drove off. No law enforcement officer present tried to detain or ask them if they'd been involved in the riots."[19]
Aqraba
According to Salah Bani Jaber, the mayor of Aqraba, Nablus, around 50 settlers attacked the town, many of them armed. The settlers assaulted and fired shots at residents, leading to two deaths. Jaber told Reuters that Israeli soldiers were present at the scene, but did not intervene and instead stood by and watched the attack. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, the soldiers blocked ambulances from reaching the wounded. According to the IDF, soldiers were dispatched to the area and intervened to halt the clashes.[7][20]
Deir Dibwan
CCTV footage showed that in the Palestinian village of Deir Dibwan, a masked Israeli settler entered a garage and set a parked car on fire, while at least three Israeli soldiers, who were guarding the settlers, watched and made no attempt to stop him.[21][22]
As-Sawiya
Israeli settlers arrived at the town of As-Sawiya, close to the Israeli settlement of Eli, and began to throw stones at the Palestinian residents, who did the same in retaliation. IDF soldiers arrived at the scene shortly after the clashes broke out and opened fire at rioters. Haaretz reported that the soldiers only arrived after the settlers were chased out of the town by a group of residents, and that the settlers were standing on a hill alongside the soldiers around 500 metres (1,600ft) away before they opened fire.[23]
A volunteer ambulance driver for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society was fatally shot by Israeli settlers while transporting injured Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.[24] Some Hebrew-language reports said that he was shot by Israeli armed forces. The IDF confirmed that an ambulance driver was killed and said that it was investigating the incident.[25]
Reactions
Israel
The settler attacks in the West Bank were criticized by Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, who called them violent riots and urged Israel to intervene to prevent further violence.[15]
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned against revenge attacks in the West Bank, saying that they would make it more difficult for Israeli forces in their mission.[26]
Dahlia Scheindlin of Haaretz in April 2024 contrasted the Israeli reaction to the Huwara rampage in February 2023 to the Israeli reaction to the April 2024 settler attacks - in the earlier event: "Many Israelis immediately labeled the Hawara events a pogrom ... they were still shocked by the collective vengeance and mob violence ... There was reckoning, conversation and some condemnation from a few political leaders", but in the later event, "in the days since Ahimeir's killing and the vigilante terror on Palestinian villages, the events have hardly registered in the [Israeli] public discourse .... all of it seems like background noise. On the Israeli side, is Israeli mob and vigilante violence, extrajudicial killing or sheer terrorism becoming routine and forgettable?"[27]
Palestine
Palestinian prime minister Mohammad Mustafa condemned the attack on al-Mughayyir and urged authorities to assist the people of the village.[10][28] He later issued a statement condemning the other attacks in the West Bank, and said that they would not discourage the Palestinian people from standing on their land.[29]
Hamas issued a statement urging Palestinians to fight against "settler militias" on the day Achimeir's body was found.[30]
Suleiman Dawabsha, the mayor of the village of Dufa, told AFP that the West Bank "has been in a state of war" since the day Achimeir disappeared.[28]
International
The United States Department of State condemned the rising violence in the West Bank and encouraged Israel and the Palestinian Authority to de-escalate the situation. Spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that "civilians are never legitimate targets" and called on authorities to protect all communities from harm.[31]
The United Nations Human Rights Office released a statement calling on Israel to take immediate and concrete steps to end the escalating violence in the West Bank.[32] United Nations Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese urged the UN to deploy a "protective presence" in the area to prevent and repel attacks against civilians, saying that the IDF had proven that it is unable to do so.[33]
The Arab League denounced the settler attacks, which it said were often perpetrated under Israeli approval and protection. It added that the attacks are "exacerbating a pervasive state of impunity and continued oppression of Palestinian lives and properties".[34]
The Foreign Ministry of the United Kingdom said it was alarmed by the increase in violence in the West Bank and said that it was causing an increase of violence in the wider region as well. It also urged Israeli authorities to conduct investigations into all of the deaths.[35]
The Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the rising settler violence, saying that attacks on civilians should cease and their perpetrators should be brought to justice. It also condemned Israeli settlements, which it described as illegal and an obstacle to peace.[36]
This page is a partial listing of incidents of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2005.
The 2000 Ramallah lynching was an attack that took place early during the Second Intifada on 12 October 2000 in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, when a Palestinian crowd of passing funeral marchers broke in and killed two Israeli military reservists and then mutilated their bodies.
The murder of Eliyahu Asheri was a terror attack which carried out on June 25, 2006, in which Palestinian Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) militants kidnapped, and later murdered the 18-year-old Israeli settler and high school student Eliyahu Asheri.
Yitzhar is an Israeli settlement located in the West Bank, south of the city of Nablus, just off Route 60, north of the Tapuach Junction. The predominantly Orthodox Jewish community falls under the jurisdiction of Shomron Regional Council. In 2022, it had a population of 2,093.
Huwara or Howwarah is a Palestinian town located in the Nablus Governorate of the State of Palestine. Located in the northern Israeli-occupied West Bank, Huwara is on the main road connecting Nablus southwards to Ramallah and Jerusalem, approximately 4 miles (6 km) from Jacob's Well. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the town had a population of 6,659 in 2017.
al-Mughayyir is a Palestinian village in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 27 kilometers Northeast of Ramallah and 34 kilometers Southeast of Nablus, in the northern West Bank. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the village had a population of 2,872 inhabitants in 2017.
The Itamar attack, also called the Itamar massacre, was a terrorist attack on an Israeli family in the Israeli settlement of Itamar in the West Bank that took place on 11 March 2011, in which five members of the same family were murdered in their beds. The victims were the father Ehud (Udi) Fogel, the mother Ruth Fogel, and three of their six children—Yoav, 11, Elad, 4, and Hadas, the youngest, a three-month-old infant. The infant was decapitated. The settlement of Itamar had been the target of several murderous attacks before these killings.
The price tag attack policy, also sometimes referred to as mutual responsibility, is the name originally given to the attacks and acts of vandalism committed primarily in the occupied West Bank by extremist Israeli settler youths against Palestinian Arabs, and to a lesser extent, against left-wing Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Christians, and Israeli security forces. The youths officially claim that the acts are committed to "exact a price from local Palestinians or from the Israeli security forces for any action taken against their settlement enterprise".
This is a list of individual incidents and statistical breakdowns of incidents of violence between Israel and Palestinian dissident factions in 2014 as part of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
List of violent events related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict occurring in the second half of 2015.
Palestinians are the target of violence by Israeli settlers and their supporters, predominantly in the West Bank. In November 2021, Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz discussed the steep rise in the number of incidents between settlers and Palestinians in the West Bank, many of which result from attacks by residents of illegal settler outposts on Palestinians from neighboring villages. Settler violence also includes acts known as price tag attacks that are in response to actions by the Israeli government, usually against Palestinian targets and occasionally against Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
On 31 July 2015, Israeli settlers firebombed a Palestinian family home in late July 2015 in the village of Duma, killing three people; 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh was burned alive in the fire, while both his parents died from their injuries within weeks. On 3 January 2016, 21 year old Israeli settler Amiram Ben-Uliel was indicted for the murder, along with an Israeli minor, for participation in planning the murder. In addition, along with two others, they were both charged with one count of membership in a terrorist organization.
This is a Timeline of events related to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during 2016.
The following is a timeline of events during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2020.
The following is a list of events during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2022.
The following is a list of events during the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2023, including the 2023 events of the Israel–Hamas war.
On 26 February 2023, hundreds of Israeli settlers went on a violent late-night rampage in Huwara and other Palestinian villages in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, leaving one civilian dead and 100 other Palestinians injured, four critically, and the town ablaze. It was the worst attack stemming from Israeli settler violence in the northern West Bank in decades. The rampage followed the deadly attack in which two Israelis were murdered the same day by an unidentified attacker in the area.
During the Israel–Hamas war, Israeli forces have carried out multiple ground incursions, occasionally accompanied by airstrikes, into several Palestinian cities and refugee camps in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including Jenin and Tulkarm. The Israeli incursions have led to clashes with Palestinian militants. Over 600 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israel since the conflict began, including 75 children. The United Nations recorded more than 800 Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians between October 2023 and May 2024. Israel has arrested an estimated 10,000 West Bank Palestinians between 7 October 2023 and August 2024. On 15 December, Doctors Without Borders reported 2023 was the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank in recorded history.
On 12 April 2024, 14-year-old Benjamin Achimeir was declared missing after he left a farm near the Israeli outpost of Malachei HaShalom to go shepherding in the West Bank, sparking a 24-hour search by Israeli authorities. The following day, his body was found by a drone near the area he went missing. His death was attributed to blunt trauma, but his body also had stab wounds, according to Israeli authorities.
Nasser, Nasser; Jeffery, Jack. "West Bank sees biggest settler rampage since war in Gaza began as Israeli teen's body is found". Associated Press. Retrieved 22 April 2024. Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank went on the largest rampage against Palestinians there since the war in Gaza began, as Israel's army said Saturday the body of a missing Israeli teen was found ... The disappearance of 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair sparked the attacks on Palestinian villages on Friday and Saturday.
"West Bank villagers vigilant but vulnerable after settler attacks". France 24. Agence France Presse. 19 April 2024. Retrieved 22 April 2024. After 14-year-old Israeli herder Benjamin Achimeir went missing on April 12 in the nearby illegal settler outpost of Malachi Hashalom, dozens of Jewish settlers stormed his village of Al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah ... That day, Achimeir's body was found bearing marks of a stabbing attack. People watched powerless as settlers rampaged through the village.
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