TL;DR – The IDF protects settlers with extreme actions
- Keith Asad, an olive farmer in Turmosayya, feels unable to access his ancestral land due to fear of violence from nearby settlers, leading him to fortify his home.
- Settler violence in the West Bank is reportedly under-investigated, with a mere 3% of cases leading to convictions, creating a perception of impunity among aggressors.
- Local Palestinians express a determined spirit to remain on their land despite ongoing intimidation, asserting their right to persist in agriculture against settler encroachment.
Defiance in the West Bank – despite encroaching threat from ‘unwanted neighbours’
For generations, Keith Asad’s family has owned olive trees in the land near the West Bank town of Turmosayya, but now they are out of his reach.
The trees are still there. He can see them, clearly, from the backyard of his house, tantalisingly close.
Keith Asad says he can’t go to his olive trees as he’s too frightened
Even though he lives in a town where crime is almost unknown, Keith has just installed a wall made of rigid metal spikes, and he’s considering adding barbed wire to the top of them.
He worries about the safety of his wife and children, but why?
Through the gaps between the spikes, we can see a group of vehicles and tents that have been set up in the valley beyond Keith’s house. He calls them his “unwanted neighbours”.
The IDF protects settlers with extreme actions
The rest of the world calls them illegal Israeli settlers or thieves.
“We have some trees over there,” he says, pointing at his land. “This is the first year that we’re not even thinking about going over there.”
The settlers are protected by the Army, if a Palestinians approaches an Israeli in the West Bank, he risks being shot, detained and imprisoned without a hearing and his family terrorised in his absence and then moved out.
That is the sad reality that Palestinians in the West Bank have to live with every day. And the settlers are protected by the IDF, who will protect the Israelis with extreme use of force. On average every day a Palestinian is killed in the West Bank by the IDF
The PA is helpless, they petition, they have lobbied and even supported criminal cases, but the Israeli judges nearly 98% of the time decide in favour of the Isralie. Even though most of them thugs and criminals.