#settler-violence

#settler-violence

Five decades in the south Jordan valley were ending in a day, and Mahmoud Eshaq struggled to hold back his tears. The 55-year-old had not cried since he was a boy, but as he dismantled the family home and prepared to flee the village where his whole life had played out, he was overwhelmed by grief. While Eshaq's children loaded mattresses, a fridge, sacks of flour and suitcases of clothes into a truck,

In 1916, Daher Nassar, a Christian Palestinian farmer living south of Bethlehem, made a move considered more than unusual at the time. He bought a 42-hectare stretch of farmland on the slopes and valleys of Wadi Salem, and formally registered the purchase with the Ottoman authorities, who then ruled the region. A few years later, after transferring the title to his son, Nassar did something even more extraordinary. He re-registered the deed under each successive administration the British mandate, then the Jordanian government,

There have been more than 1,000 violent settler attacks in the first eight months of 2025 alone. While much of the globe's attention remains on the Gaza ceasefire deal, less than 33 kilometres (21 miles) away, Israeli settlers, often backed by soldiers, continue daily assaults and raids across the occupied West Bank. On Monday night, Israeli settlers uprooted 150 olive trees in the village of Bardala, in the northern Jordan Valley, destroying the livelihood of several families.

According to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, illegal settlers attacked Palestinian farmers while they were harvesting olives in the Jabal Qamas area of Beita, beating them and setting fire to three vehicles, one of which belonged to AFP photographer Jaafar Ishtayeh. In my 30-year career, this is the first time I have faced violence of this kind, Ishtayeh said. If I hadn't managed to escape, they would have killed me.

Moscow lodged a formal complaint with Israel over an attack by Israeli settlers on a Russian diplomatic vehicle near an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.

Sayfollah Musallet, a Palestinian American, was killed by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank on July 11, just days before his 21st birthday.