How Israel Organizes and Arms Settler Militias to Terrorize Palestinians in the West Bank
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Oslo Accords
15 min read
The article references Area B and Area C designations which were established by the Oslo Accords. Understanding the original framework of these agreements, their intended purpose, and how they divided the West Bank into zones of control provides essential context for why settlers can operate with state backing in Area C while Palestinians have limited protections.
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Israeli Civil Administration
8 min read
The article describes a complex dual structure of military occupation and civilian settlements. The Civil Administration is the Israeli governing body that manages Area C and coordinates with settlement councils, making it central to understanding how the legal and bureaucratic framework enables the settler militia system described.
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Masafer Yatta
10 min read
The article specifically mentions Al-Mufaqara hamlet in Masafer Yatta and the South Hebron Hills as a site of settler violence. This collection of Palestinian communities has been subject to decades of legal battles and eviction attempts, providing a concrete historical case study of the displacement patterns described in the article.
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Story by David Schutz
IBSIQ, WEST BANK—On July 20, around ten masked men raided the Palestinian hamlet of Ibsiq in the northern Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank. They arrived in a two car convoy, dressed in Israeli military-issue fatigues, and carried assault rifles fitted with green laser pointers.
While their vehicles blocked the road, they stormed into a cluster of homes. At gunpoint, they forced a Palestinian family to their knees and warned them they had 48 hours to evacuate Area C and go to Area B—referring to technical designations of control in the West Bank under the Oslo Accords. Area C is under full Israeli control and Area B is technically under Palestinian civil administration but shares security control with Israel. The masked men said they would “return and burn the community down,” if the family did not evacuate to Area B.
I had been staying with an elderly Palestinian couple for five days in Ibsiq to document settler violence amid rising threats against the community. As the men approached, I asked one of them who he was. They looked like soldiers, but the vehicles in which they arrived had yellow civilian license plates. These masked assailants were members of the hagmar— settler reservist militias formally attached to the Israeli army and tasked with “security” in West Bank settlements.
The men dragged me behind a fence where four of them beat me until I required hospitalization. They stole the phone of an International Solidarity Mission activist who tried to record the attack.
My host, Abu Safi, who was 84, had little choice but to leave his home after that raid by the hagmar. The family packed up their belongings accumulated over decades in the house and moved to a nearby location in Area B. Abu Safi died of a heart attack soon afterwards.
The raid on Ibsiq, whose Palestinian residents have since all fled the depopulated hamlet, offers a glimpse into an essential part of how Israel rules the West Bank.
In parallel with Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza
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