Geoff Bennett:
Violence surged in the West Bank this past weekend when Palestinians say Israeli settlers burned two mosques following deadly clashes between Israeli soldiers and Palestinians.
This week, a group of former Israeli military commanders accused Israeli settlers of increasing their attacks and footprint in the West Bank on land that Palestinians hope will be their future state. Israel says it’s Palestinians who are committing the violence.
The “PBS News Hour” recently visited multiple West Bank villages, where producer Karl Bostic and Nick Schifrin report on the increasing violence and threats.
Nick Schifrin:
In the West Bank, a place of prayer now desecrated, its holy words reduced to rubble. On the burnt facade, a menacing message: “The land of Israel is redeemed with blood, revenge.”
On Sunday, Israeli settlers stormed the Palestinian villages of Qusra and Kour, setting the local mosques ablaze, the latest in an escalating series of violent, often deadly attacks. Last Friday, Israeli settlers entered the nearby village of Tell, confronted by Palestinian residents.
The clash became fatal. Israel says a local Palestinian took the gun of an Israeli security guard and shot and killed him and an Israeli soldier. Palestinians say Israeli soldiers then opened fire, killing four, the ensuing grief echoed by an entire community in the West Bank, and, in Israel, a military funeral.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed a crackdown. And since Friday, Israeli forces have raided at least 20 Palestinian towns and villages, demolished at least three homes that they called illegally built and arrested over 130 Palestinians in what it called extensive counterterrorism operations.
Palestinians say the threat comes from the military and settlers simultaneously. Last weekend, settlers set fire to Palestinian villages, residents rushing in fear from their flaming homes. Settler attacks are increasingly common in the West Bank. The U.N. says, so far this year, settlers have launched at least 580 attacks.
They are often hostile to locals and journalists. Our team recently visited the village of Ainub (ph), where Palestinians had been forcibly displaced. On the day we visited, Palestinians brought the body of 69-year-old Bahia Al-Tabal (ph) for burial.
But the settlers wouldn’t open the gate. So they carried her body underneath, humiliation even in death.
Man:
Why are you here?
Nick Schifrin:
And they might be wearing uniforms, but they’re not soldiers. Settlers with army rifles tell another journalist they’re not welcome.
Man:
Everyone with the camera, tell them to come here right now.
Nick Schifrin:
And in the village of Al Hadidiyah, they loom just a few hundred feet away as we conduct an interview.
Mohammed Bani Odeh family has lived here for decades. Settlers forced his neighbors to flee. They’re one of the few families that stayed.
Mohammed Bani Odeh, West Bank Resident (through interpreter):
They came and attacked them with guns and bullets, more than 20 settlers. They attacked their homes. They remained in fear and were forced to leave this area.
Nick Schifrin:
While we spoke, settlers drove by. It was a kind of show of force to make sure they knew they too had cameras.
Odeh says those same settlers who live in the illegal outpost in the background assaulted his family.
Mohammed Bani Odeh (through interpreter):
They attacked using firearms. They pointed their weapons towards us and opened fire. But God saved us, thankfully. They didn’t just want to terrorize us, but to kill too.
Nick Schifrin:
Right-wing members of Israel’s government vow to expand the settlements.
Bezalel Smotrich (through interpreter):
We are making sure that the decisions we have made regarding the establishment of the new settlements will not remain on paper, but will become reality on the ground.
Nick Schifrin:
That means there’s nowhere for Odeh to go.
Mohammed Bani Odeh (through interpreter):
Here is my home, my life, my sheep. I can’t leave it and go somewhere else. Where would I go? All of the West Bank is surrounded, whether cities, villages, or towns. There isn’t a place without settlers surrounding us everywhere.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Prime Minister:
It’s actually 150 or so what you would call juvenile delinquents.
Nick Schifrin:
On CNN earlier this month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said it was Palestinians attacking Israelis in the occupied West Bank, but he also vowed to reduce settlers’ crime.
Benjamin Netanyahu:
I think it’s wrong on its own account. I don’t want and don’t accept vigilantism, and I don’t care if it comes from Arabs or Jews. Our citizens cannot practice violence against anyone.
Nick Schifrin:
But even the youngest of Palestinians are not spared from that violence. Palestinian schoolchildren in the village of Umm Al Khair walk what was once their path to school. But it’s now blocked by barbed wire marked with Israeli flags.
Palestinians say this video shows settlers in army uniforms firing a tear gas canister to stop villagers from reaching the school. And so before the school term ended, the hill became their classroom for an English lesson.
Student:
I have been there for a week.
Nick Schifrin:
Their audience, settlers with military rifles. The children demand, open the road. They demand a better future.
Masa Al-Hathaleen Is six.
Masa Al-Hathaleen (through interpreter):
They want to take our land in all Palestine to prevent us from going to kindergarten or school, so our teacher won’t say that we are brilliant.
Nick Schifrin:
Asked what she thinks of the settlers, she tells us she’d rather not say, for fear of getting shot. She dreams of helping others.
Masa Al-Hathaleen (through interpreter):
I want to be a doctor to treat people, so if anyone gets injured, I will treat them.
Nick Schifrin:
But hers is a dream deferred and a path that is blocked.
With Karl Bostic in Umm Al Khair, for the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Nick Schifrin.
