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Four Palestinians were killed in two separate villages in the occupied West Bank this weekend, as Israeli settlers continue to ramp up their attacks amid the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Three of the victims were shot dead by settlers, while a fourth died of cardiac arrest after Israeli soldiers fired tear gas in the aftermath of one of the shootings.
These two fatal attacks followed another last week, when settlers shot dead two residents of the village of Qaryut, near Nablus, on March 2. The Israeli army has imposed a total closure on the West Bank since the start of the Iran war, shutting checkpoints and gates across the territory and restricting Palestinian movement between different districts, as settlers roam freely.
The first of this weekend’s two deadly attacks took place in the village of Wadi Al-Rakhim, in the South Hebron Hills, where settlers killed Amir Shanran, 28, and severely wounded his brother, Khaled, 34. According to residents, the settlers arrived at around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday as the Palestinians were heading back to their homes after performing the Asr prayer.
“Four settlers entered the community’s private land carrying sticks and batons, along with their herd of cows which they released into our crops and trees,” Muthanna Shanran told +972 Magazine. “We told them to leave and to remove their cows from our fields. Instead, they kept advancing toward our homes to provoke us further and destroy as many crops as possible.”
“As soon as we tried to drive the cows off the land, the settlers started beating us,” said Zakaria Shanran, Amir’s cousin. “They hit me on the head with a stick. My uncle, Mohammad (Amir’s father), and my brother, Harith, were struck on the head with a baton. Then the settlers began throwing stones at us.”
It was then that two more settlers arrived in an ATV. Residents say the pair are well known to the community for regularly leading attacks in the area, but they cannot be named in this article for legal reasons. According to Zakaria, the shooter was wearing a military uniform and carrying a rifle.
“As soon as he arrived, he started firing into the air, struck me in the face with the butt of his rifle, and then shot Amir and Khaled,” Zakaria recounted. “They stood there while Amir and Khaled were bleeding on the ground. Amir died immediately because the injury was to his neck from point-blank range. Khaled was shot in the chest and hand.”
Residents rushed the brothers and several other injured community members to the hospital in their private cars. At the hospital, Amir was pronounced dead, while Khaled underwent surgery and is now in a stable condition.
Even after the wounded had been evacuated, Muthanna said, the shooter got back in the ATV and chased residents between their houses, running over 45-year-old Aziza Shanran and severely wounding his leg.
Large numbers of Israeli soldiers and police subsequently arrived at the scene, during which time settlers moved freely around the site of the killing. The authorities listened to the shooter’s account without arresting him; they took only one Palestinian testimony at the scene, interviewing a local woman for only two minutes.
The settlers circulated a version of events afterward, claiming that it was the Palestinians who had attacked a Jewish shepherd with clubs, before a soldier shot one of them and saved the shepherd’s life.
While settler attacks have traditionally been confined to parts of the West Bank classified as Area C, under the full civil and security control of the Israeli army, this one occurred in Area B, administered by the Palestinian Authority. In recent months, this particular region has seen a surge in settler violence emanating from the outpost of Ancient Susya.
The Israeli army refused to answer +972’s questions about this incident, instead sending its official communique published in the aftermath of the incident which stated: “According to an initial investigation of the incident, an IDF reservist soldier, who rushed to the scene following a report of an attack, opened fire.” The army and the police, it added, are continuing to investigate the incident.
A security source confirmed that the army confiscated the shooter’s weapon after the incident.
‘They are exploiting the war’
Only a few hours after the shooting in Wadi Al-Rakhim, another deadly settler attack took place on the outskirts of the village of Khirbet Abu Falah, near Ramallah.
The settlers descended from the Or Nahman outpost, overlooking a large area between the Palestinian villages of Abu Falah, Turmus Ayya, and Al-Mughayyir, which has become a hotspot of settler violence in recent months — including during the olive harvest in October, when a Palestinian woman in her 50s was seriously wounded.
At around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday, dozens of settlers — some of them masked and armed with clubs — raided the village. When residents went out to protect their homes, additional settlers arrived as “backup” and opened fire.
“There were around 70 or 80 of them,” one resident, who requested anonymity due to fear of reprisals, told +972. “They started shooting at the residents, hitting two people in the head — they know exactly where to shoot in order to kill. They shot another man in his leg, then attacked him with a rock.”
According to eyewitnesses, the two Palestinians shot in the head — Tha’er Hamayel, 30, and Fara’ Hamayel, 57 — were killed instantly. About half an hour later, Israeli military forces arrived at the scene and fired tear gas, after which another resident, Mohammed Hassan, 55, suffered a cardiac arrest.
An Israeli security source confirmed that it was settlers, not soldiers, who fired the gunshots, and the army did not deny that Hassan died as a result of soldiers firing tear gas into the village. Six others were wounded during the attack, including four by live fire, local sources reported.
“This wasn’t the first attack on the village, but it was the most violent,” Abdel-Jalil Khattab, 40, told +972 as hundreds of residents gathered for the funeral of the three men at the local mosque later on Sunday morning.
“They want to destroy, they want to take control of the land,” he continued. “We have thousands of dunams [of farmland] belonging to the village that no one can reach because of the settlers: Anyone who goes there is beaten or shot at. And it’s not only here in Abu Falah — it’s the same in Al-Mughayyir, Turmus Ayya, Kafr Malik, and all the villages.
“They are exploiting the war; they exploit every opportunity,” Khattab went on. “The settlers are fully armed, while the young men here are completely unarmed. What can an unarmed person do against an armed settler? Nothing.”
At the house of Tha’er Hamayel, the women of the community gathered to pay their last respects as the body was brought there before noon prayers. His mom, Emelia, said: “He was the first one to go out [to protect the village] and the last one to return. His last words were: ‘Send my regards to my mom, and take care of my children.’”
The Israeli army again refused to respond to +972’s questions about this incident and instead sent their statement following the incident, which confirmed that a criminal investigation had been opened.