English
Israeli settlers clashed with security forces on Monday night as soldiers and police attempted to return a Palestinian family to their home in the occupied West Bank village of Jalud. The operation failed. Settlers blocked the Tubassi family from re-entering their property, forcing authorities to abandon the effort and drive the family to safety.
Settlers Confront Family and Security Forces
According to Tubassi, settlers entered the property shortly after the family arrived. Israeli security forces then urged the family to move to the roof. The settlers followed them there as well.
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Several soldiers and officers formed a physical barrier between the family and the settlers. However, the situation remained too dangerous. Security officials eventually placed the family in an armored vehicle and drove them away from the scene.
The failed operation had been ordered by Israel’s High Court of Justice. Earlier this month, the court instructed relevant authorities to ensure the Tubassi family could return home within two weeks. The court also demanded that security forces explain to the Tubassis and another Palestinian family why they had not removed the barriers blocking access to their homes.
Court Order Goes Unenforced
As of Tuesday, it remained unclear whether or when authorities would attempt to carry out the court’s order again. The Israel Defense Forces said it had no details about how the matter would be handled in the near term.
Speaking by phone from his father’s nearby home, where the family has been staying, Tubassi said Israeli officials told him nothing about future plans. “I don’t know if they will let me go back,” he said. The family’s home also suffered serious fire damage during Monday night’s events, further complicating any potential return.
“What happened was a nightmare for us,” Tubassi said. “And now we are living through other nightmares, because our loss has become so great. The state of Israel has not stopped these thugs from taking our homes and our land and from killing us.”
Growing International Pressure Over Settler Violence
The Tubassi family’s situation reflects a broader pattern of settler violence in the West Bank. That violence has become a growing international embarrassment for Israeli leaders. Israel’s military has repeatedly struggled to contain attacks carried out by hundreds of lightly armed young men.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned the attacks and called for the rioters to face prosecution. He described those responsible as “a handful of rioters” who do not represent the wider settler population in what he called Judea and Samaria, the biblical term for the West Bank.
Netanyahu made similar remarks at the United Nations General Assembly the previous week. He rejected what he called “vigilantism” by Jewish settlers but sought to minimize the scale of the problem. He suggested it involved only “a handful of juvenile delinquents, about 150 in number, who throw stones, who down olive trees, occasionally they light some fires.”
Scale of Displacement and Violence
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs paints a far more serious picture. According to OCHA, settler attacks in the West Bank have displaced approximately 6,500 Palestinians since 2023.
Between January 1 and July 24, Israeli forces or settlers killed 76 Palestinians, the latest available OCHA data shows. During the same period, three Israelis were killed. Furthermore, OCHA recorded nearly 200 settler attacks in August alone that resulted in Palestinian casualties or property damage.
Israel has regularly accused the United Nations of bias against it. Meanwhile, many governments around the world regard the West Bank as illegally occupied Israeli territory. The international debate over settler violence continues to intensify as incidents like the one in Jalud draw wider attention.
