Israeli army, settlers unite in collective punishment of Al-Mughayyir
The siege of the West Bank village and destruction of its olive groves were a joint exercise in intimidation and re-engineering of Palestinian space.
On Friday, Aug. 22, a convoy of bulldozers rolled into the olive groves of Al-Mughayyir, a Palestinian village east of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. Most were civilian machines operated by settlers, with several armored military bulldozers in support. By Sunday, thousands of olive trees, many of them decades old and belonging to local families, had been torn from the ground.
The order came from Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, head of the Israeli army’s Central Command. Officially, the destruction was part of a manhunt for a Palestinian gunman who had allegedly opened fire on Israeli settlers grazing sheep on the village’s land, wounding one before fleeing. The army claimed the uprooting was meant to clear potential hiding places. Yet Bluth himself soon revealed that the true aim lay elsewhere.
“Every village and every enemy must know that if they carry out an attack against the residents [settlers], they will pay a heavy price,” Bluth declared during a briefing at the site. “They will experience a curfew, they will experience a siege, and they will experience shaping operations.”
“Shaping operations” is the army’s euphemism for a policy of physically re-engineering areas where Palestinian resistance has emerged. Earlier this year, the tactic was applied in refugee camps across the northern West Bank, where soldiers demolished hundreds of homes, displaced tens of thousands of residents, and leveled structures to ease military access — leaving three camps, one in Jenin and two in Tulkarem, effectively deserted.
In Al-Mughayyir, Bluth’s words were quickly put into practice. Bulldozers razed the groves while soldiers imposed a siege and stormed homes. “We are now getting a grip on this village,” Bluth said. “The first mission is to hunt [the assailant] … The second is to carry out shaping operations here, and to ensure that everyone is deterred — not only this village, but every village that tries to raise a hand against the residents [settlers].”
Palestinians survey the devastation after settlers and soldiers uprooted thousands of olive trees in Al-Mughayyir, occupied West Bank, Aug. 24, 2025. (Oren Ziv)
Following Bluth’s remarks, two leading Israeli human rights groups, Yesh Din and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, demanded that the Military Advocate General open a criminal investigation into the general on suspicion of war crimes. In its petition to the court, Yesh Din argued that Bluth’s order was patently illegal “because it directly contradicts the provisions of international law which prohibit harm to private property and collective punishment,” and because the residents “were not given the opportunity to appeal [the move].”
ACRI, meanwhile, asserted that “war crimes and crimes against humanity [have become] a daily matter in the West Bank,” and warned that the army’s “doctrine of ‘there are no non-involved [individuals]’ that was first implemented in Gaza has reached the West Bank and given the name ‘shaping operations.’”
As criticism mounted, the army’s spokesperson attempted damage control. In a statement released Sunday, the spokesperson defended Bluth, insisting: “The IDF condemns the inappropriate remarks against the head of Central Command, who is acting based on operational considerations and in accordance with the law.”
Yet Bluth’s own words, combined with the army’s decision to uproot entire groves rather than merely trim the trees, reinforced the sense that this was less about immediate security considerations than about collective punishment. That impression only deepened after a video circulated on social media showing an army bulldozer operator who took part in the operation boasting: “You sons of whores, don’t mess with me. In the next attack I’ll take down a house.”
‘Their goal is to displace us’
From Thursday until Sunday morning, Al-Mughayyir was under complete blockade: Residents were barred from leaving their homes, and soldiers sealed both village entrances. The eastern gate to the Alon Road has been closed since the start of the war; during the siege, the western entrance was also shut, forcing residents seeking to return onto multi-hour detours that were themselves blocked. On Thursday, several laborers attempting to return home through the surrounding hills were stopped and beaten by settlers and soldiers, according to local accounts.
Stars of David and soccer team initials graffitied by settlers or soldiers during a three-day siege on Al-Mughayyir, West Bank, Aug. 24, 2025. (Oren Ziv)
Over the course of the three-day siege, the army arrested 10 residents, including five brothers and the head of the village council, Amin Abu Alia. The military claimed one of the detainees was the gunman suspected of carrying out the settler shooting. Meanwhile, Stars of David and the initials “MTA” and “MH” — references to the soccer clubs Maccabi Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa — were spray-painted on the walls of several homes.
In a video posted to the council’s Facebook page, Abu Alia explained why he decided to surrender. “During the house raid, they arrested my son and told me I must turn myself in,” he said. “They linked the siege of the village to my surrender.”
Israeli forces finally withdrew on the morning of Aug. 24, leaving behind widespread destruction. Only then were residents able to leave their homes and survey the damage. “This is not the first attack, but it is the most violent one,” said council member Marzouk Abu Naim. “Their excuse is that a settler was attacked. People lost their trees — ancient trees, uprooted far from the Alon Road [where the shooting happened]. Homes were raided and searched. People were shocked by the number of soldiers and the level of hatred. They ransacked dozens of homes, threw stun grenades. They did this to my house while my wife and I were inside. [In other homes,] they even looted money and gold.”
Standing on his land beside the Alon Road, 55-year-old Abd al-Latif Abu Alya surveyed the ruins of 350 uprooted olive trees. “Their goal is to displace us, to uproot us from our land and destroy it,” he told +972. “But we are rooted here, steadfast on our land, and we will remain here for life. God willing, I will replant my land with renewed determination. None of this destruction will break me.”
Local activist Rabeah Abu Naim echoed the sentiment, describing how soldiers raided homes, destroyed property, and seized valuables. “They besieged the village because it is the last one east of Ramallah before the Jordan Valley. They already control the Valley and the surrounding areas — now it is the turn of the villages closest to it.” He added that soldiers beat his younger brother for filming the bulldozers and then arrested the council head “at the settlers’ demand, to appease them.”
Abd al-Latif Abu Alya, 55, stands near one of thousands of olive trees that were uprooted by Israeli soldiers and settlers, in Al-Mughayyir, occupied West Bank, Aug. 24, 2025. (Oren Ziv)
Asked by +972 about these events, the Israeli army spokesperson said the military had launched “intensified operational activity in the area” in response to “the serious shooting attack near the village of Al-Mughayyir and the terrorist’s escape from the scene into the village,” as well as “a series of terror attacks that originated from that same village.”
The spokesperson added that Israeli forces carried out “clearings” near the Alon Road, which the gunman had allegedly used for cover, calling the operation “immediately required to prevent a danger to life.” They confirmed that soldiers had conducted arrests and searches, during which the suspected assailant was apprehended. Responding to residents’ claims that soldiers confiscated money, gold, and a car, the spokesperson said troops acted to seize “stolen vehicles and weapons.” The uprooted olive trees, the statement continued, “were left at the edges of the cleared area; they will not be sold, and the IDF does not intend to use them.” Allegations of theft, it added, “were examined and are not known to us.”
‘Finally the IDF is acting as it should’
In recent years, and especially since the start of the war in Gaza, settlers have seized all grazing lands east of the Alon Road, many of them belonging to Al-Mughayyir residents. Now, they appear intent on taking over the open lands west of the road as well, with the army seemingly doing everything it can to assist them.
According to Dror Etkes of the Israeli NGO Kerem Navot, four new settler outposts were established around Al-Mughayyir after the war began in Oct. 2023, and one was established before it, earlier that year. In total, eight outposts now encircle the village, including one inside Area B (territory under Palestinian civil authority but Israeli security control). The most significant of them, Adei Ad — legalized in 2022 and formally recognized as a settlement this May — functions as a hub for the others.
On Friday, Zvi Sukkot, chair of the Knesset’s Subcommittee on Judea and Samaria Affairs, visited the site of the uprooting. “Finally the IDF is acting as it should,” he declared. “Every village from which a terrorist emerged to harm our residents must know it will pay a heavy price.”
Elisha Yered, a self-described “hilltop youth” and former spokesman of Religious Zionism MK Limor Son Har-Melech, described the army’s actions and their motives in detail in a video filmed at the scene: “For almost 24 hours, bulldozers have been working to clear all the trees along the sides of the road. A closure has been imposed on the village, soldiers are going house to house, and the army promises this is only the beginning. Commander Bluth is speaking publicly for the first time about collective punishment, so that [this village] and its friends will understand that harming Jews does not pay.”
Yered urged that the campaign not stop at Al-Mughayyir: “The houses of the murderers in the village must continue to be demolished, the terrorist’s house must be destroyed today [regardless of the position of] the High Court and [human rights group] B’Tselem, and the model must be replicated for every village that dares to test this.”
Meanwhile, settler violence across the area has escalated. This month alone, three Palestinians have been killed: On Aug. 16, 18-year-old Hamdan Abu Alia was shot dead by soldiers after a settler attack in which homes and cars were torched; on Aug. 13, an off-duty soldier shot dead 35-year-old Thameen Dawabsheh in Douma during clashes that followed settlers’ use of a bulldozer on village land, in an area where several outposts were erected; and on Aug. 2, settlers stormed the town of Aqraba, killing 24-year-old Muin Asfar as residents tried to repel the invasion. During that attack, one settler was heard saying: “All of Aqraba is going to be in our hands. Pack your things and go. You saw what happened in Gaza.”
Last month, settlers and soldiers killed two Palestinians on the lands of the village of Al-Mazra’a A-Sharqiyyeh, and three more were killed by army fire after a settler attack in nearby Al-Mughayyir.