Why rights groups say so many Palestinians in the West Bank are being attacked with impunity

For years, even decades, human rights groups that monitor the occupied West Bank have implored Israel's allies to take steps to punish Jewish settlers and members of Israel's mili‐ tary who attack Palestini‐ ans and seem to carry out their actions with im‐ punity.

And so when word came over the weekend that Is‐ rael's closest ally, the United States, reportedly plans to hold members of an Israeli military battalion composed of ultra-orthodox and reli‐ gious nationalist members accountable, they saw it as progress.

Earlier, the United States and Europe had placed economic and travel sanc‐ tions on a few key settlers believed to be responsible for instigating attacks, but implementing penalties and putting restrictions on a branch of the Israel Defence Forces is unprecedented.

Israel's government was indignant and rejected the suggestion that the military unit should be singled out.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said imposing sanc‐ tions on the Netzah Yehuda battalion while the war against Hamas still rages and the unit is fighting in Gaza "casts a heavy shadow" on other IDF units.

And Prime Minister Ben‐ jamin Netanyahu suggested the potential U.S. measure was "the peak of absurdity and a moral low," as he vowed to fight it.

A series of U.S. statutes, known as the Leahy Laws, prohibit U.S. military assis‐ tance from being transferred to organizations that the U.S. State Department deter‐ mines have committed hu‐ man rights abuses.

And by many accounts, the abuses attributed to Net‐ zah Yehuda during its decades-long time as en‐ forcers of Israel's rules in the West Bank are about as bad as they get.

In one incident in 2022, members of the unit dragged a 78-year-old American Palestinian man, Omar As‐ sad, from his car after being stopped at a checkpoint. He was bound, gagged, blind‐ folded and beaten. An autop‐ sy concluded he died of a heart attack from the stress of the encounter.

Violent rampages against property, Pales‐ tinians say

While the U.S. move is linked to events that happened be‐ fore Oct. 7, the potential sanctions come at a time when violence against Pales‐ tinians in the occupied West Bank has reached new levels in the aftermath of Hamas's attacks on southern Israel.

There have been violent rampages against Palestinian homes, businesses and prop‐ erty almost every day of late, in many cases with Israeli sol‐ diers present, but not inter‐ vening to stop the rampages, say Palestinians who wit‐ nessed them.

Palestinian officials say more than 486 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank since Oct. 7, many in military raids and others from attacks by settlers.

WATCH | Wave of settler violence in occupied West

Bank:

The United Nations has recorded 774 attacks by set‐ tlers on Palestinians in the past six months, with Israeli soldiers present in nearly half the attacks. Human Rights Watch says the vio‐ lence has forced Palestinians to flee at least seven commu‐ nities permanently.

In its most recent report encapsulating the whole of the year - both before and af‐ ter Oct. 7 - the UN said 2023 was the worst year for settler attacks on Palestinians in any year since tracking started in 2006.

"If you want to solve the problem, you have to go af‐ ter the government that's re‐ sponsible for allowing this to happen," said Omar Shakir, the Israel and Palestine direc‐ tor for Human Rights Watch.

"The reason why we're seeing this unprecedented increase in settler violence is because of decades of im‐ punity for settler violence," he told CBC News in an inter‐ view in Ramallah.

"They [settlers] are armed by the Israeli government. They are sometimes directly encouraged to carry out at‐ tacks, and they're doing so in more and more areas that the Israeli government covets for settlements."

In a What's App message to CBC News, the IDF said its role is to "protect the prop‐ erty and lives of all citizens," and that security forces have "means to disperse demon‐ strations."

A team from CBC News recently spent time in the vil‐ lage of Al Mughayyir, about 27 kilometres northeast of Ramallah, which was the site of a deadly rampage by hun‐ dreds of settlers on April 12.

Over the following two days and nights, other Pales‐ tinian villages nearby were al‐ so burned, causing damage to 60 properties and more than 100 vehicles, according to Israeli human rights group Yesh Din.

We visited the scene of a deadly shooting at the home of Abdullatif Abu Alia.

A blood-soaked pillow and blanket on the flat roof of his home marked the spot where he said his cousin, Je‐ had Abu Alia, bled to death.

"Hundreds of settlers be‐ sieged the house," he told CBC News.

Jehad Abu Alia, 25, was visiting his extended family when the home was sudden‐ ly surrounded by masked set‐ tlers, many carrying guns, and others throwing rocks.

Abu Alia said his family barricaded themselves inside

as windows were smashed and vehicles outside set on fire.

Abu Alia said at one point, someone on the ground fired shots at their position on the top of the building and Jehad was hit in the head.

"The army was helping [the settlers] and they stopped all kinds of ambu‐ lances and medical people from coming to help the in‐ jured," Abu Alia said.

With no way to get his cousin to hospital, Abu Alia said all he could do was to try to stop the blood gushing from the wound himself, in what turned out to be a futile effort to save his life.

The trigger for the Al Mughayyir rampage was the disappearance that morning of a 14-year-old Israeli teenager and sheep herder, Benjamin Achimeir.

Not long after the mob at‐ tack began, a police drone spotted his body not far from the outskirts of Al Mughayyir.

Although the circum‐ stances of his death remain unexplained by Israeli au‐ thorities, Netanyahu called it a "heinous murder."

On Monday morning, the

IDF, Israel's internal security agency Shin Bet and Israeli police announced they had arrested a 21-year-old Pales‐ tinian. The statement said he had "implicated himself" in the teen's death after an in‐ terrogation by Shin Bet.

Since the violence in Al Mughayyir, there have been several attacks by settlers in the West Bank, including one this past weekend that killed a Palestinian ambulance dri‐ ver who came to help the in‐ jured in the town of AsSawiya, according to the Palestinian Health Authority.

"Since Oct. 7, we have seen an unprecedented inte‐ gration of violent settlers into the security forces," said Shakir, of Human Rights Watch.

"So whereas before there was a clear differentiation between security forces and settlers, you have increasing situations where settlers are wearing army uniforms."

Settler population in‐ creased

Under successive Israeli gov‐ ernments, the settler popula‐ tion has surged, growing 15 per cent in the last five years, according to one study by the pro-settler group BankJewishPopulation‐ Stats.com.

There are now more 517,000 settlers living in the occupied West Bank, with 200,000 Jewish settlers living in occupied areas of East Jerusalem.

The United Nations con‐ siders the Jewish settlements to be illegal, as do Canada and many other Western countries.

Shakir said of late, re‐ venge has been another mo‐ tive for the violence, with many settlers seeking retri‐ bution on Palestinians in the West Bank for Hamas's mas‐ sacre of Israelis on Oct. 7.

The Hamas militants who streamed across the Gaza border and into Israel on Oct. 7 killed more than 1,200 peo‐ ple and kidnapped 253 peo‐ ple, according to Israeli gov‐ ernment tallies.

Palestinian officials say more than 34,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, with Is‐ rael's military flattening vast parts of the territory in an ef‐ fort to destroy Hamas.

WATCH | Israeli settlers and U.S. blamed for West Bank violence:

During the CBC News visit

West‐ to Al Mughayyir, our team al‐ so met with Palestinian shep‐ herd Imad Abu Alia.

He said in the months leading up to the attack on the village, settlers from sev‐ eral nearby communities had been using drones to watch his property and track his herd of sheep while they grazed.

During the mayhem in Al Mughayyir, he said a group came onto his farm and burned his barn, killing some of his sheep and stealing the rest of the 120 animals in his herd.

When he tried to save his flock, he said the mob attack‐ ed him, leaving him with a neck brace and immobilized in bed.

"They beat me so much to the point that I saw death with my own eyes," he told CBC News.

Without his sheep to sup‐ port his family, Abu Alia said he does not know what he will do.

"These sheep are like my children," he said. "I just want them back."

Rights groups say seizing the livestock of Palestinians and constructing grazing out‐ posts has become a new tac‐ tic of the settlers, as it de‐ prives Palestinians of an in‐ come and often forces them to abandon their properties.

CBC News asked Israel's military for more details on the death of Benjamin Achimeir.

In a WhatsApp message, the IDF said that there were "signs of violence" but did not provide further details.

With regards to Palestin‐ ian allegations about the conduct of Israeli soldiers in Al Mughayyir, the IDF said complaints "about soldiers' behaviour that is not in ac‐ cordance with orders will be examined."

Regarding the allegations that security forces held up ambulances and prevented the wounded from reaching hospital, the IDF said that was necessary for a "security check" before the ambu‐ lances were given the autho‐ rization to continue.

Israeli human rights group Yesh Din says between 2005 and 2022, 93 per cent of in‐ vestigations against settlers who attacked Palestinians were closed without any charges.