On 13 July 2024, while driving for work towards Wadi Al-Seeq Bedouin community, a Palestinian area stretching over around nine thousand dunams east of Deir Dibwan town, near Ramallah city, Ahmad ‘Mohammed Ali’ Suleiman Hijawi and his colleague H. S., were attacked by Israeli settlers. In his affidavit to Al-Haq, Mr. Hijawi recalled that two armed settlers intercepted them as they reached what they thought to be a Palestinian Bedouin community in Wadi Al-Seeq – two tents, a small barracks, a livestock pen and a water tank. This was in fact an infamous “pastoral outpost”.[1]

What followed was a series of harassment, intimidation and violent attacks. One settler aimed his weapon at Mr. Hijawi and H.S. at close range, ordering them to disembark from the vehicle. Mr. Hijawi and his colleague complied as the same settler held them at gunpoint, while repeatedly threatening: “You Arabs are terrorists, I will kill you. You are criminals, I will kill you. You are terrorists, I want to avenge Gaza”. The other settler searched their vehicle for approximately ten minutes and took their IDs. When they noticed that Mr. Hijawi was a resident of Jenin, they told him: “You people in Jenin are terrorists. You are here to kill us. I will kill you now”.

Afterwards, a third settler joined and talked with the other two settlers. He left shortly and came back holding a medium-sized knife. The armed settler claimed that it belongs to Mr. Hijawi and his colleague, saying “we found this knife in your car, and you are here to stab us”. Mr. Hijawi and his colleague denied such accusations, but the settler said, “in any case, we will kill you”. Then, one of the settlers suddenly attacked Mr. Hijawi and placed the barrel of his weapon directly on his head, pressing the muzzle against it. Meanwhile, another settler tried to force Mr. Hijawi to hold the knife in his tightly clenched hands, presumably to put his fingerprints on it, while threatening to kill him. When their attempts failed, the armed settler moved away from Mr. Hijawi and pointed his rifle at him in preparation to shoot. In his affidavit, Mr. Hijawi recalled what ensued as follows,

My colleague and I repeatedly tried to explain the reasons for our presence in the area and the nature of our work... When we realised that the settler might pull the trigger at any moment, my colleague and I recited the Shahada [final prayers for Muslims], in preparation to die. We suddenly heard one bullet shot, which put us in a state of extreme panic and fear and set us to check whether the other was shot. It turned out that the bullet was fired in the air directly above our heads. All of this, according to my estimation, lasted about half an hour, during which the settlers had taken our mobile phones. Then, the settlers tied our hands with plastic ties behind our back, pulling them tightly to cause the greatest amount of physical harm, and blindfolded us. After that, the settlers threw us on the ground and started beating us with their legs and hands on various parts of the body, particularly the chest and heart, and tossed dirt onto my face, as we were in a dusty and rugged area. Additionally, one of the settlers spat on my face, repeatedly, while yelling and cursing at me, for around 30-40 minutes, all while fearing that they might shoot us at any moment, especially as I could no longer see what was happening around me, which caused me great fear and danger for my life.

Afterwards, the Israeli occupying forces (IOF) arrived at the scene. An Israeli soldier removed the blindfolds and the plastic ties, and interrogated Mr. Hijawi and his colleague. One Israeli soldier told them that they are in a closed area which they are not allowed to enter without prior coordination with the IOF. Mr. Hijawi responded: “there are no signs to indicate this, and I have been here before and never faced this”. The soldier responded: “I am surprised you made it out of here alive. This is [one of] the most dangerous area[s] since 7 October [2023]. The settler could have killed you and threw your bodies in the mountain and nobody would have known of your fate. This would have been a case of self-defence”. After further interrogation, Mr. Hijawi and his colleague were released, only to realise that the settlers had also tampered with H.S.’s car. This forced Mr. Hijawi to push the vehicle approximately 200 meters away from the settlers, barefoot, as they had forced him to remove his shoes early on. Mr. Hijawi and his colleague waited for a towing vehicle, which was searched by the IOF, before they were able to leave the area.

Notably, a couple of days after the attack, Mr. Hijawi was informed by a representative of the Bedouin community of Wadi Al-Seeq that the armed settler who attacked him is named Neriya Ben Pazi and that the Bedouin communities have filed several complaints against him before the Israeli High Court of Justice for carrying out multiple attacks, destroying and damaging several homes and a school, and forcibly displacing Bedouin communities in the Central Mu’arrajat area and Wadi Al-Seeq.^[2] Notably, Ben Pazi, who was placed on the U.S. sanctions list on 14 March 2024 for “expell[ing] Palestinian shepherds from hundreds of acres of land […] and attack[ing] Palestinians near the village of Wadi [Al]-Seeq”, received a total of NIS 39,335 (around USD 10,500) in financial support from the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture for “Preserving Open Areas through Animal Grazing” between 2020 and 2023.

The settler attack against Mr. Hijawi and his colleague is not the first of its kind in Wadi Al-Seeq. Al-Haq had previously documented cases of forcible transfer, degradation, beatings and sexual assault of Palestinians in Wadi Al-Seeq.^[3]

General Context

Mr. Hijawi’s story is merely one example of the multi-layered violence and severe impact Israel’s settlement enterprise inflicts on Palestinians. As part of its settler-colonial project, Israel has created and imposed a coercive environment designed to systematically dominate and oppress Palestinians. This is manifested in the form of, inter alia, establishment of settlements and outposts, including pastoral outposts, and the pervasive culture of impunity ensured by Israeli authorities to settlers, which not only condones but further encourages settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties and lands.

Israel’s settlement enterprise has sprawled throughout the occupied West Bank, including Jerusalem, over the past years, to the point that more than 700,000 settlers are now living in 150 settlements and 128 outposts, both illegal under international law. While Israel’s settlement enterprise has existed for over 57 years since its unlawful occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), violence against Palestinians has escalated in intensity and scale since 7 October 2023. This includes an increase in settler attacks, with large numbers of settlers targeting Palestinian villages and towns, resulting in killings, beatings, damages and the burning of Palestinian property, and forcible displacement. Since 7 October 2023, and until 16 September 2024, Israeli settlers carried out approximately 1,360 attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, around 130 of which led to Palestinian killings and injuries, whereas some 1,088 attacks led to Palestinian property damage. Moreover, around 1,628 Palestinians, including 794 children, have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank due to settlers attacks, since 7 October 2023. Currently, settlement expansion is at its highest level since United Nations’ monitoring began in 2017, while Israel has designated a record amount of West Bank land as state-owned, paving the way for land seizure and settlement construction.

Legal Analysis

The colonisation of Palestinian territory, including through Israel’s transfer of its own civilian population into the oPt – which amounts to a war crime that engages the individual criminal responsibility of involved Israeli civilian and military officials, is the core character of the Israeli occupation. Notably, the International Court of Justice recently reaffirmed, in its Advisory Opinion, Legal Consequences Arising From the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, that “Israel’s continued presence in the [oPt] is unlawful” and must end “as rapidly as possible”. The Advisory Opinion further concluded that Israel must “cease immediately all new settlement activities, and to evacuate all settlers from the [oPt]”.

As an Occupying Power, Israel must “ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety” of the occupied Palestinian population as protected persons under the Fourth Geneva Convention.[4] The widespread and systematic attacks on the Palestinian population may amount to the crimes against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer, persecution, and apartheid per the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The attack above exemplifies the widespread, long-term, and worsening phenomenon of settler attacks against Palestinians. Such attacks are a direct result of Israel’s transfer of its own civilians into occupied territory.

Moreover, the measures taken by the international community in response to settler violence, whether the ongoing investigation into these attacks by the ICC or the sanctions imposed by the United States and some European countries against low-level Israeli settlers, fall short of addressing the root causes of settler violence, and fail to address the responsibility of Israeli authorities in maintaining and advancing the settlement enterprise. Al-Haq reiterates that settler violence involves all levels of the Israeli state as a state-sponsored violence, highly encouraged by high-level officials, including through the provision of arms, accompanied and sometimes actively supported by IOF and unpunished by the Israeli judiciary. Accordingly, settler violence should be tackled as a matter of state policy, taking into account the causal link between these heinous acts and Israel’s colonial settlement enterprise and culture of impunity.