Yahav Zohar / March 2026

Last Friday and Saturday, at the new moon, Muslims celebrated the Eid al Fitr holiday. Traditionally, in Palestine this is a time to visit relatives, share meals and exchange gifts, but for many in the West Bank celebrations were marred by the threat of Iranian missiles and escalating settler violence.

On Wednesday night, just before the holiday, four women were killed by an Iranian missile in the village of Beit Awa. The four, members of the local Masalmeh family, were getting their hair and nails done, preparing for the celebrations.  Unlike the surrounding Israeli settlements, Palestinian communities have no sirens to warn them of incoming missiles, and no shelters to run to, the cluster munition crashed into the flimsy prefab structure of a small beauty salon, destroying it completely.

Meanwhile Settler raids into West Bank villages, assisted by the military, reached a fever pitch on Saturday night. Settlers, often in uniforms and carrying assault rifles,  raided at least 14 villages all over the West Bank, setting fire to vehicles, homes and farms and attacking anyone who got in their way, in what looks very much like the 19th century Russian pogroms.

In many cases, particularly in the Northern West Bank, the raids were framed as ‘revenge’ for the killing of 18 year old settler extremist Yehuda Sherman Saturday morning. ‘Revenge for Yehuda’ was spray painted on walls in the attacked villages, next to houses that were set ablaze. 

It is perhaps useful to explain the context of his death to better understand the cyclical or spiralling logic of these attacks.

Sherman was killed in a collision between  his ATV and a Palestinian vehicle near the village of Beit Imrin, in the northern West Bank. Although Israeli authorities have been keeping the details deliberately vague, it appears that the collision happened in area A, the part of the West Bank that is supposed to be fully controlled by the Palestinian Authority, and which Israelis like Sherman are officially prohibited from entering by the IDF.

In the past, settler raids have focused on small rural Palestinian communities in the sparsely populated area C, assisting the semi-official Israeli policy of ethnically cleansing the countryside and herding Palestinians into the more densely populated areas A and B. Some of you may have seen the Academy Award winning ‘No Other Land’, which documents these attacks on some of the poorest and most vulnerable communities. 

Since October 7th 2023. Under the cover of war and with support from Israel’s extremist governments, raids have extended into the more densely populated Area B, targeting larger established villages, such as Qaryut, Jalud, and Taybeh. For the first time, settler outposts were established in area B.

A special ministry of the Israeli government was set up to support settlements, and it was this ministry which a few months ago began purchasing and distributing All Terrain Vehicles (ATVs) known as ‘rangers’, to the most extreme settler outposts, to allow settlers to drive quickly over rough terrain and extend the ‘security zone’ around their outpost, driving shepherds and farmers off their land and raiding into surrounding villages.

Just two weeks ago, in the context of increased ‘security’ due to the most recent war, the government allocated  a further 50 million shekel to fund the most extreme settlers, the ‘farm’ outposts that serve as a base for many of these raids.

Sherman and another youth were on such patrol, riding an ATV into Beit Imrin when the collision took place. Settlers and military sources accuse the Palestinian driver of ramming into the ATV and driving it off the road, though the evidence does not seem to support this claim. The Palestinian vehicle was driven off the road and the driver seriously injured. Still, Israeli authorities have now announced they are investigating the collision as a terrorist attack.

So a settler, from an outpost that the Israeli government officially considers illegal, rode an ATV gifted by the Israeli government (more specifically the Settlements and National Missions Ministry and the Settlement Division of the World Zionist Organization) into an area he is officially forbidden from entering and collided with a Palestinian vehicle, killing himself and injuring a fellow settler sitting next to him and the Palestinian driver he collided with. In response, settlers raided into more Palestinian villages destroying property and terrorizing residents. 

No settlers have been arrested. No investigations into the raids have been announced. The only potential suspect remains the injured Palestinian driver.

For Palestinians, the message is familiar. Any harm to a settler risks collective punishment, further raids, more destruction, and terrorism charges. As a result, many attacks go unresisted.

The cycle continues: violence justified as retaliation, retaliation enabled by state support, and accountability applied asymmetrically. Palestinians remain both the primary victims and, in official narratives, the accused. 

Yahav Zohar is a Senior Partner and tour guide with the Green Olive Collective.