Disturbing video at paywall free link: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/b33bb7499300997e
Palestinian woman beaten by masked Israeli settlers
IDF lured us into an ambush, claims American activist who filmed the attack on olive farmers
20 October 2025
A woman was struck over the head and clubbed repeatedly as part of a mob attack by Israeli settlers in the West Bank.
Graphic footage shows a large number of masked men, some armed, chasing Palestinian farmers off their land, assaulting observers and setting cars alight.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been accused of enabling the violence, which took place on the first day of the olive harvest near the village of Turmus Ayya, north of Ramallah.
It came as Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and a key broker of the Gaza ceasefire deal, warned Israel that it must improve Palestinian lives to achieve full integration in the region.
He arrived in Israel on Monday along with Steve Witkoff, the White House Middle East envoy, to try to keep the tenuous peace on track.
Sunday’s violence by Jewish settlers is part of a sustained increase in the two years since Oct 7, since when most of the international community’s focus has been on Gaza.
It was documented by Jasper Nathaniel, the US journalist and activist, whose video footage of the attack has been viewed nearly two million times on X.
Palestinian farmers left their village early in the morning, travelling in a convoy for safety reasons.
The footage appears to show settlers, one with a gun in his hand, blocking one of the routes out of the agricultural areas. The other route was blocked by a group of IDF soldiers.
A recording appears to show one of the Israeli troops promising to move more settlers who were nearby. However, the soldiers then speed away and the Palestinians are then attacked.
This prompted Mr Nathaniel to claim that the IDF had “lured us into an ambush”.
An army spokesman said troops had received a report of violence carried out by Israeli civilians and had mobilised to disperse the confrontation.
Dozens of masked men, some carrying sticks, others throwing rocks, were filmed chasing the group of farmers as they sought to leave the areas.
One man carrying a large club was filmed running up to a woman who was standing on her own and striking her to the ground, before beating her repeatedly with the weapon.
Named as Afaf Saleh Abu Alia, the woman in her 50s was then carried moaning into a car and later taken to hospital, where she was reported to be in a stable condition.
A foreign activist had his arm broken at around the same time, it was reported.
Access to olive groves, many of which are hundreds of years old, is a key battleground in the ongoing violence directed at Palestinian communities by people from Israeli settlements, which are illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
In some villages, olives are the main source of income, but farmers face attack if they try to access the trees.
There have also been multiple reports from across the West Bank of trees being cut down.
Since Oct 7, when front-line units have tended to be drafted to the fighting in Gaza, IDF soldiers in the West Bank have been more likely to come from settler communities.