'This Is Our Land,' Says the Israeli Settler

As Muslims around the world celebrated an end to the holy month of Ramadan over the weekend, Palestinian communities across the West Bank were violently assaulted by Israeli settlers in what witnesses describe as coordinated attacks.

Masked settlers—many under military protection—carried out raids in at least 12 locations, according to multiple reports and video footage. They burned cars, homes, and used weapons, including guns, grenades, rocks, live fire, and pepper spray, to inflict pain on Palestinians.

The West Bank is one of two enclosed regions where Palestinians live under Israeli control, the other being the war-torn Gaza Strip. But Israeli settlers, with the support of a far-right government and the silent complicity of many Israelis, have sought to take this land. Israel has killed at least 26 Palestinians in the West Bank since the beginning of the year, of whom at least eight were murdered by settlers.

On Monday, the widespread violence continued. In Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank, Israeli soldiers detained six Palestinians, including a journalist, after raiding and vandalizing their homes. The Israel Defense Forces also set up checkpoints around the city and surrounding villages, “closing multiple main and secondary roads with iron gates, concrete blocks, and earth mounds,” according to the Palestinian News Agency Wafa.

How can Israel dispute the facts of genital mutilation reported in none other than the Times—a paper often accused of holding sympathy for Israel? I guess just like Donald Trump: by doing it.

Attacks by Israeli settlers and soldiers have become more brazen since America and Israel escalated their war in the region. The United Nations estimates that Israeli soldiers and settlers have murdered at least 15 Palestinians since the start of the Iran war in late February.

In a brutal report in The New York Times March 18, for example, a Palestinian man had his genitals mutilated—in front of his family—and 400 sheep stolen by some 20 Israeli settlers. The account is almost too harrowing to put to words.

Imagine you are a Bedouin: a nomad, a villager in the Middle East. In Israel, this often means you are looked on as a peasant—and there’s no doubt you are Palestinian. You’re a woman, a mother. You live in a tent. Your life is seen as a threat by men across a border they built—the separation wall enclosing Palestinians in the West Bank.

A group of settlers arrives. Some 20 men beat you, slap your children, pull you out of your tent—your home—by your hair. They demean you for existing. They tie up your husband, strip him naked, cut his boxers with a knife, and tie his penis with a zip tie. Imagine that. Can you?

That’s the story of Suhaib Abualkebash, 29, in the report I mention above in the Times. “This is slow death,” Niama Abualkebash, 28, said of the attack on her husband. “Doing this to a man is to kill him.”

Human rights activists staying in the Bedouin community—a common tactic used to deter settler attacks in the past—were among those beaten by the settlers. Ava Lang, a 24-year-old American activist, recalled what the settlers said: “They were asking our names, where we’re from, saying, ‘We’re going to kill you,’ and ‘This is our land; we’re Jewish.’”

After beating the family, including a 3 year old, the settlers stole family wedding rings, cellphones, cash, and identification papers. The brother of the man who had his penis mutilated, Muhammad Abualkebash, 40, recalls what the settlers said next.

“They said; ‘If you don’t leave, we will burn you. We’ll hit you. We’ll take your children, and we will rape your women,” he said to the Times. “‘Go to America, go to Jordan or anywhere else, but go.’”

Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians—mostly women and children—in Gaza since October 2023. About 1,000 have been killed in the West Bank, where, as the UN has reported, young men and boys are at a higher risk for harassment and mistreatment by Israeli settlers and soldiers.

How do Israelis feel about this? From what journalists have observed in the country, only a small portion of Israelis openly oppose violence against Palestinians.

A new poll featured on Israel’s Channel 12 reveals that first-time Jewish Israeli voters, between 18 and 21 years of age, are more right-wing and religious-nationalist in their outlook than older voters. The poll found that 75% of voters described themselves as “right-wing” compared with 68% among older voters. The self-identified “left” accounts for only 5%.

Justice is unlikely for the Abualkebash family—or any of the Palestinians harmed, intimidated, and mutilated by Israeli settlers in the West Bank. Let’s not forget: beyond murder, abuse can extend to injuries, displacement, and destruction of Palestinian homes and farmland.

“Most of the international community views Israel’s presence in the West Bank as illegal,” wrote The Times of Israel on March 17, “though the US under President Donald Trump has been more tolerant.”

Also on March 17, the UN unveiled an investigation into settler violence in the West Bank, covering a 12-month period up to November 2025, warning of an “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians at the hands of Israelis. The report denounced the Israeli government’s role in aiding settler expansion in the West Bank.

“The Israeli government has accelerated unlawful settlement expansion and annexation of large parts of the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, forcibly displacing over 36,000 Palestinians and increasing violence by Israeli security forces and settlers,” UN Human Rights spokesperson Thameen Al-Kheetan said at a briefing in Geneva.

Israel, responding in their usual tone, via the Israeli diplomatic mission in Geneva, accused the UN of being anti-Israel. “It does not function as an impartial and neutral human rights office, but as the epicenter of vile anti-Israel activism,” the mission said in a statement.

How can Israel dispute the facts of genital mutilation reported in none other than the Times—a paper often accused of holding sympathy for Israel? I guess just like Donald Trump: by doing it.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, where it’s been less than six months since the so-called ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was brokered, some 680 Palestinians have been killed.

On Sunday, four Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza. At least 10 others were wounded. And last week, the military killed 12 Palestinians in an urban refugee camp. One family of four was among the slain, including a woman who was pregnant with twins.

“We were sleeping and got up to the strike of a missile. The strike was strong,” said Mahmoud al-Muhtaseb, a neighbor. “There was no prior warning.”