A land of legalised murder and theft

Israel has now become a state where Zionist murderers and thieves are not only tolerated, they are positively encouraged . But only if the victims are Palestinian and the crimes are committed in order to steal more , often good farming, land.

In the recent past, there was usually at least a pretence of an investigation by police when such murders and thefts were carried out by self-styled settlers, a number of whom are migrants from countries such as the USA, South Africa and Australia. Now, as Haaretz columnist and photographer Alex Levac discovered this month, police didn’t even bother to investigate the killing this month of another farmer and the wounding of seven others.

Below is Gideon Levy’s August 15, 2025 report:

Five days after settler Yinon Levi, known for his violent acts against Palestinians, shot and killed the teacher and shepherd Awdah Hathaleen in the South Hebron Hills – and after the deadly shooter was released following a single night of house arrest, without any legal measures being taken against him – the settlers saw that life was good. In the present state of affairs, they realized, it’s easy execute Palestinian shepherds and tillers of the soil with the aim of forcing their communities to leave, and nothing bad will happen as a result.

Maybe that’s why they killed another farmer, this time in the center of the West Bank, and wounded seven others. The incident occurred on August 2. This time the police didn’t even bother to launch an investigation. From their point of view, firing an automatic rifle, with deadly results, is no reason to interrogate anyone – certainly not these days, when the lives of Palestinians are worth nothing.

The temperature reading in our car stood at 49 degrees Celsius (120 F.) when we pulled up this week near the place where 24-year-old Mo’in Asfar was shot to death by settlers. According to the report compiled by Salma a-Deb’i, a field researcher for the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem, the group consisted of 10 to 15 settlers, unmasked, four armed with M16 assault rifles and the rest with pistols.

On that Saturday afternoon, Asfar, a member of the Dariya clan, was in his family’s okra field with friends when settlers approached and drove them off with threats; the Palestinians withdrew to the family’s olive grove. But then a settler opened fire, apparently after stones were thrown by those trying to protect their property from the armed marauders, and no fewer than eight people were hit: Asfar was killed and seven others were wounded by automatic fire, three seriously.

The setting was the fields of Aqraba, a town located between Nablus and the Jordan Valley. The rather young head of the local council, Salah a-Din Jaber, shows us an aerial photo of the vicinity. His community is suffocating. Since the start of the Gaza war, settler outposts have begun to surround Aqraba, in all four directions, severing it from neighboring villages and towns. Aqraba has also lost much of the land its residents own; settlers have taken it over by force, with no significant resistance.

The council head’s account suggests that new sheep and cattle farms – which the settlers create in order to seize control of large tracts of land on which they pasture their own herds – are doing the job. The idea is to cut off a town of 16,000 inhabitants until perhaps they too will lose their will to protest and will leave, like the smaller pastoralist communities in the Jordan Valley and the South Hebron Hills.

After the 1967 war, Jaber explains, many of the townspeople left Aqraba. There are all together some 80,000 residents and descendants-in-exile, mainly in Jordan. But today, in the face of the settlers’ assaults, no one is abandoning ship.

Aqraba is a relatively affluent community blessed with fertile land, whose original boundaries extended as far as the Jordan Valley. Its agricultural output is of high quality; it boasts extremely well-cultivated olive groves and meticulously plowed fields. Bolstering it is money that flows in from the community in exile, accounting for the attractiveness of the streets and the homes.

A huge Palestinian flag flaps in the breeze at the entrance to the town. The sign on the local council building announces that we are in the “State of Palestine.” Jaber sits in his spacious office, buzzing with people, and opens the door for his guests by remote control.

Aqraba, he tells us, is today one of the grimmest places in the West Bank. In the last 22 months of war it has lost a total of 25,000 dunams (6,250 acres) of its land to the rapacious, violent settlers, who are denying the Palestinians access to their fields and their neighbors. “Wherever they choose to pasture their sheep, they are protected by the army,” he says of the invaders.

Indeed, the settlers’ flocks have already destroyed 377 dunams of the town’s cultivated – and stolen – land, and there is no one to help. All of Jaber’s complaints to the police have gone unheeded.

“Asfar’s killing isn’t disconnected from all this,” Jaber asserts. “There’s a method behind it. The sheep, the settlers and the army will serve the goal and the goal is to evacuate us from all of Area C [under full Israeli control] and push us into Area B [Palestinian civilian control and shared security with Israel]. The settlers’ mentality has changed since October 7. Every settler behaves like [Bezalel] Smotrich and [Itamar] Ben-Gvir”– a reference to Israel’s hard-right cabinet ministers.

The scene of the incident in Aqraba where Asfar was shot dead this week. The private ambulance driver wasn’t allowed to evacuate the wounded.Credit: Alex Levac
Aqraba has seen some 300 attacks mounted by settlers since the war broke out, including property theft and sheep rustling, arson and violent assaults on farmers in their fields.

Jaber: “They are isolating us, they have separated us from the whole surrounding area. First they intimidate us with violent attacks – genuine terror – and the army supports them. Afterward they seize control of the land, when the residents are too frightened to access it.”

On that particular Saturday, when the settlers opened fire, he told one of the army officers who had arrived to protect the assailants, “It’s amusing that you’re protecting those who are bearing arms and shooting at the helpless. The army’s task is to protect us from them, but it does the exact opposite. The settlers are not above the law – they are the law. They’re behaving toward us as if we were frogs.”

Mohammed Abdullah Asfar, the grandfather of the young man shot to death on August 2, was also killed by settlers – 25 years ago. And Mo’in’s uncle was killed, in his home, by soldiers conducting a raid. Sitting on the balcony of the house, where a weak fan is trying to counter the heat, is the bereaved mother, wearing black, enveloped in silence. Hajar Asfar, who’s about 50, didn’t utter a word while we were there.

Mo’in, her son, was single; he tilled the land and ran errands for the local council. At about 4 P.M. on August 2, his uncle, Ibrahim, received a phone call from someone warning that a group of settlers had invaded the fields and that a few young people from town were on their way to try to block them.

At first there was a verbal confrontation, then physical violence. Subsequently, stones were thrown at the encroachers and finally there was a burst of gunfire from the long-barreled rifle of one of the settlers, that struck eight people. The security chief of the settlement of Migdalim was on hand there, as well.

The head of the Aqraba council, Salah a-Din Jaber, in his office this week. Everywhere the settlers graze their flocks, they are protected by the army, he says.Credit: Alex Levac
According to Ibrahim, who rushed to the scene, the shooting started only after the army showed up. That way the settlers apparently felt more secure about killing.

Hagar Shezaf reported this week in Haaretz that one of the settlers hurled curses at the inhabitants: “Get out of here, fuck off. Not only will I take the land, but all of Aqraba and Jurish [nearby town] – and you will go to Jordan.” Another armed intruder threatened that, “All of Aqraba will be in our hands. Pack up your things and get out of here. You saw what happened in Gaza.” He hit one of the residents with his phone, and then the shooting occurred.

The Shomron (Samaria) Regional Council issued two statements containing the settlers’ account. “Dozens of Palestinians approached the outpost in a threatening manner,” it reported, and attached a photograph of the deceased holding a stone. But Mo’in was killed on his own property, which is at least a kilometer from the outpost – it’s located on a hilltop on the other side of Highway 505.

Haaretz did not receive a response from the Israel Police regarding the incident.

The driver of a private ambulance, Yusuf Asfar, who was at the scene, wasn’t allowed to evacuate the wounded – the army allowed only one Red Crescent Society ambulance to do so. Mo’in was struck by two bullets, in the chest and leg, and died instantly. The wounded were taken to the medical clinic in Aqraba, and afterward to Rafidia Hospital, a government-run facility in Nablus. According to the driver, they have since recovered but were in critical condition.

Local residents say that after the settlers returned to their outpost, they could heard people singing there.