'An Attack Can Happen Any Second': My Eyewitness Testimony of Rampant Settler Violence
On December 17, I arrived at the village of Ras Ein al-Auja to join Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine for six weeks of full-time protective presence work. During protective presence, activists spend time in Palestinian communities, hoping to de-escalate the risk of settler and military violence, and document any incidents that do occur.
I have engaged in this form of activism throughout the West Bank, specifically in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, as a field coordinator for Rabbis for Human Rights and with other grassroots activist collectives.
Ras al-Ein is one of the last remaining Palestinian communities in the southern Jordan Valley. Several others, most notably Mu'arajat, have been ethnically cleansed as a result of rampant settler violence. Because of this, Ras al-Ein has become the primary target for many outpost settlers, including several who participated in the attacks on Mu'arajat. Activists from the anti-occupation group, Looking the Occupation in the Eye, have informed me that the same settlers who attacked them in Mu'arajat are now harassing the residents of Ras al-Ein.
This means that activists have needed to respond to far more incidents than is typical for just one village. Where usually four activists are sufficient to offer protective presence to one community, we have needed twice that amount to respond to the multiple settler incursions happening every day, often simultaneously and at opposite ends of the village. And, whether behind the scenes or on the ground, the Israeli police and military are facilitating all of this.
On December 30, a video spread on right-wing social media accusing a Palestinian man in Auja of throwing stones at settlers. The video is blurry and does not show anyone throwing stones; it shows a close-up of a stone falling, with no evidence of who threw it.
But this was enough for the military and police to arrive and take immediate action. At the behest of two settlers – one of whom, Avishai Horowitz, runs the local outpost – the police promptly arrived in the village and arrested an elderly man accused of throwing stones, while the military arrested four younger men simply for being related to the suspect; all were released later that night.
This swift action stands in stark contrast to the many documented incidents of state forces watching from the sidelines as settlers attack Palestinians and solidarity activists. But the state seems particularly energetic when it comes to enforcing the law against the latter two groups. Earlier that day, one solidarity activist was arrested on accusations of animal cruelty. He was released after a few hours. Additionally, one settler tried to have me and another activist arrested on baseless claims that we attacked him.
This fear — the threat of violence — is just as deadly a weapon as violence itself. The model of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank is not putting people on trucks and forcefully removing them from the area; it is to make them so tired and scared that they give up and leave
During the arrests of the Palestinian villagers, several settlers roamed the village. Most were masked, and one was riding a horse and armed with an assault rifle. At one point, I was alone with one other activist, surrounded by about ten settlers. The police did not respond to our calls and ignored the clear danger we were in.
While we were not attacked, an entire family in the village was attacked and hospitalized. Watching the Red Crescent evacuate this family served as a potent reminder that the various state forces present were not there to protect anyone but the settlers. And if those allegedly there to protect you refuse to do so, your safety is at the whims of the most violent local actors: the settlers from Horowitz's outpost.
After the arrests, the settlers seemed satisfied and left the village. But later that night, they plowed a swath of land in the middle of Ras al-Ein. The plowing continued the following morning, and the settlers have since set up a makeshift outpost less than one hundred meters from a family's home.
This family has felt so unsafe that they have requested constant activist presence, including overnight stays and escorts to and from the vicinity of their home. The fear I felt during that night raid – the fear most Palestinians experience 24/7 – has since grown exponentially; an attack can now happen at any second. The establishment of an outpost in the middle of the village in this manner was precisely what led to the expulsion of the community in Mu'arajat.
This fear – the very real threat of violence – is just as deadly a weapon as violence itself. The model of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank is not putting people on trucks and forcefully removing them from the area; it is to make them so tired and scared that they give up and leave, heading to the Palestinian cities in Area A.
Rarely does a single attack instill this level of fear. But constant attacks, and the constant encroachment on land with the clear signal that more attacks are coming, does. Establishing an outpost inside a village, especially right after an attack and a night raid, sends a clear message: more attacks can, and will, come at the drop of a hat.
When Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that settler violence is carried out by "70 kids [who are] not from the West Bank," Ras al-Ein serves as a case study that settler violence is a system of violence backed by the state. In Ras al-Ein and the rest of the West Bank, that system is firing on all cylinders.
It is not enough for politicians to condemn settler violence, even if they do so in stronger words than Netanyahu used. Short of withdrawing from the West Bank and ending the occupation, our leaders must push for real change in the military's conduct on the ground.
But everyday Israeli citizens also have a role to play. We have shown we are capable of outrage at pogroms and at IDF violence carried out with impunity, as demonstrated in the days and weeks after the violent settler-led attack on Hawara in 2023 – an event that even the IDF called a pogrom. It is the job of activists spending time in the field to use our stories and our documentation to help turn that outrage in Israeli society into sustained political will for change.
Sam Stein is a writer and activist engaged in protective presence work in the Jordan Valley with Unarmed Civilian Protection in Palestine.