Abed Wadi was putting on his clothes for the funeral when he received a message.
He received a picture from a friend. In the picture, there were some men wearing masks. They were holding axes, a petrol canister, and a chainsaw. The picture had words written on it in both Hebrew and Arabic.
The message said that we are waiting for the rats in Qusra village and we won’t feel sad when they’re gone.
“The day for getting back at someone is approaching. ”
Qusra was a village called Wadi. It was located in the northern part of the West Bank, close to Nablus. The ceremony that day was held for four people from the village who had passed away. Three people died yesterday – Wednesday 11 October – after Israeli settlers went into Qusra and attacked a Palestinian family’s house.
The fourth person was killed in fights with Israeli soldiers afterward.
The next day, the people from Qusra were getting ready to go to a hospital that was thirty minutes away. They planned to bring back the bodies of the people who had died. To accomplish this, they would need to travel over land that has Israeli communities, where the chances of violence are very high even during normal times, and have increased significantly in the past two weeks since Israel started fighting with Hamas.
Wadi stopped using his phone and carried on getting ready. There were four men placed in refrigerators at the hospital who needed to go back to their homes. He said he wouldn’t let a threat stop him. He had heard a lot.
Wadi had no idea that, in a few hours, some extreme Israeli settlers would confront the funeral procession and his own brother and young nephew would be killed.
Wadi, sitting in the cool outdoor area of his family’s house in Qusra, asked, “What would have been the point if we had waited one or two more days. ”
“Do you think the people who came to live here would have gone away after just one day. ”
Based on information from the UN’s humanitarian office, the week after Hamas’s violent attack was the deadliest for Palestinians in the West Bank since 2005. During this time, at least 75 Palestinians were killed by the Israeli military or settlers. Additionally, the number of incidents where settlers were violent increased from an average of three per day to eight.
Israeli forces attacked a Palestinian refugee camp and launched a surprise air strike on Thursday 12th. According to Palestinian officials, at least 12 people were killed. Israeli police reported that one officer also lost their life.
The United Nations said this week that there was a high chance of the occupied territory becoming very chaotic and uncontrollable.
Palestinian people who live in the West Bank believe that while everyone is focused on the tragic events happening in Gaza, Israeli settlers are using this as an opportunity to go into villages, forcing out and sometimes hurting or even killing Palestinian civilians.
In three instances, villagers have seen settlers wearing military clothes or being with the Israeli military when they attacked, as shown in videos or confirmed by eyewitnesses.
The first three men who died in Qusra went to protect a family in a house on the edge of the village. Some people in the village said that settlers came to the house and started throwing rocks at it.
They say the people who moved in then started shooting at the Palestinian neighbors who came to help. They killed three young men named Hasan Abu Sorour, Obayda Abu Sorour, and Musab Abu Reda. They also seriously injured many others. Moath Odeh, who was 21 years old, died after fighting with soldiers.
A man and his six-year-old daughter, who lived in the house, were injured when they were shot in the face and stomach. This information comes from two people who helped at a nearby clinic for treating the injured.
One of the people helping at the clinic was Amer Odeh, who is also a cousin of the victims. It was Amer’s responsibility to call Said Odeh, who is the father of Obayda, a 17-year-old.
Amer said in an interview with Said in Qusra on Tuesday that he told him his son was not seriously hurt. “I was unable to surprise him with this news during our phone conversation. ”
Said quickly went to the medical center. “They said my son got hurt, but I couldn’t see him right away,” he remembered with tears in his eyes.
I said I wanted to see my son, and when I went into the room, I sadly saw that he had been killed.
The next day, there was going to be a funeral for the four people who died. Abed Wadi tried to forget the picture of men wearing masks and carrying axes and chainsaws. He joined the group of cars that were bringing the bodies from the hospital to Qusra for the funeral.
As the cars and ambulances were driving on the Nablus-Ramallah road, a group of extremist Israeli settlers suddenly attacked the convoy. During the fight, as seen in videos and heard from people who were there, some settlers threw rocks at the group of cars. In response, some people from the funeral cars also threw rocks. Then, the Israeli settlers and soldiers started shooting real bullets.
During a chaotic and violent situation with a lot of random shooting, Abed Wadi got separated from his brother Ibrahim, who is a 63-year-old politician from the Fatah Movement, and Ibrahim’s son Ahmed, who is a 24-year-old studying law. A video shows Ahmed and some others running away from the shooting, but Ahmed gets shot on the road.
Wadi said that they informed him that his nephew got shot two times in his stomach and once in his neck, and his brother got shot in his waist, closer to his heart.
“He said there were no weapons in our funeral procession. ” “Normally, we display the Palestinian flag on our cars, but this time we didn’t even show our flag because we were too scared. ”
People in Qusra village told the BBC this week that they were very scared. Last weekend, the olive season started in the area. However, people who rely on the harvest for money said they won’t go to the groves near the village because they’re scared of settlers shooting at them.
According to information from the United Nations, there was already a large increase in violence from Israeli settlers this year before the Hamas attack. More than 100 incidents were reported each month, and around 400 people were forced out of their land between January and August.
The Israeli organization B’Tselem told the BBC that they have seen settlers trying to take control of land in the West Bank. They believe that these settlers are taking advantage of the fact that most attention is currently on Gaza and northern Israel.
According to information collected by B’Tselem, in the first six days after the Hamas attack, there were at least 46 different times when settlers in the West Bank threatened, physically harmed, or caused damage to Palestinians’ property.
“A large number of families and communities who work as shepherds have left their homes because they were scared and in danger from other people who recently moved into their area,” explained Roy Yellin, a spokesperson for B’Tselem. People who moved to a new place are telling people who already live there that they have to move out by a certain time. They are threatening to hurt them if they don’t leave. And some villages have completely become vacant.
One of the villages was called Wadi al-Siq, it was close to Ramallah. Before, it used to have around 200 Palestinian Bedouin people living there. Abdul Rahman Kaabna, a 48-year-old farmer from Wadi al-Siq, stated that we have been experiencing constant harassment and attacks from settlers for several months. However, since the war began, the number of attacks has increased.
On 9 October, around 60 people, some of them wearing military clothes, attacked the community, as reported by three residents who have now been forced to leave. “Kaabna stated that they used weapons to attack us and made everyone feel scared. ” After that, they allowed us to go outside with our sheep for one hour. But they warned us that if we didn’t leave, they would kill us.
Another resident, Ali Arara, who is 35 years old, said that the people who live there had to walk a distance of more than 10 kilometers, which is equal to 6. 2 miles, in order to get away from the situation. “He said the settlers took everything from our houses. ” My daughter was very scared. They attacked us and took away everything we had.
According to B’Tselem and Yesh Din, another Israeli human rights group that monitors violence in the West Bank, the fear and forced removal of people in Wadi al-Siq has happened in many other communities in the area since October 7th.
In a very surprising event recorded on video recently, a person from Israel who lives in a place they established in Palestinian land went into a village called Al-Tuwani near Hebron. They shot a Palestinian resident who was not carrying any weapons, right in the stomach while a soldier from Israel seemed to be watching without doing anything.
The problem started when two people with weapons, along with a soldier, attacked a house near the village. This information was given by three people living in the village, including the owner of the house.
“Three Israelis visited my house. They were carrying weapons, and one of them was dressed in army attire,” explained Musab Rabai, who is 36 years old.
A person who moved to a new place came inside my home, gave me a forceful push, hit me on the head with a gun, and threatened to shoot me.
Neighbours came to Rabai when he shouted for help, he said. One of the people was Zakriha Adra, who is a father of four children. Adra’s cousin, Basel, recorded a video that shows a settler who is said to have beaten Rabai, along with an Israeli soldier who is standing nearby. The incident happened close to a group of Palestinian neighbors. The person with a weapon comes closer to Adra and hits him with their rifle. They then shoot him in the stomach from a short distance away.
During the interaction, Adra keeps his arms down and doesn’t seem like a threat.
The family says that Adra is now in the hospital and is in very bad shape. “Basel, his cousin, said that he survived but the bullet caused a lot of harm to his stomach. ”
Musab Rabai, whose house got attacked, said the shooting happened after several days of threats and the settlers damaging his property.
He said that they have been standing around the village since Saturday with guns and using a bulldozer to destroy trees. The men in the village take turns sleeping for only a few hours at a time. This way, there is always someone awake in case the settlers try to attack.
The BBC reached out to the Yesha Council, a group that represents settlers in the West Bank and other areas, to give their opinion for this story. However, they chose not to comment. Moti Yogev, the temporary leader of the Binyamin Council, which speaks for settlers in the area, said that aggressive settlers were considered to be on the extreme edges of the settler group. “He said that if they are real, they should be treated just like any other criminal. ”
The Israeli army and Israeli police did not give any response when asked for comments multiple times.
Dov Khenin, a former Israeli politician who now advocates for peace, said that the saddest part is that the Israeli military doesn’t react to the violence caused by these extreme settlers. And the violence has a specific goal, to remove these small Palestinian communities and make them leave their homes.
Many Palestinians are afraid that the situation in the West Bank will only become more bad. Israel’s National Security Minister, Itar Ben Gvir, said last week that the government will buy 10,000 rifles for Israeli civilians, including those in West Bank settlements. This could make it harder to tell the difference between armed settlers and military in the occupied territory.
In Qusra, Abed Wadi said he heard about the 10,000 guns. He moved his head from side to side. He said that it wouldn’t make any difference for the people of Qusra.
Wadi was sitting in his outdoor area, with pictures of his brother, nephew, and four other men from the village who died last week on the walls around him.
“He said that we have always seen the settlers holding rifles, and they have been shooting at us for a long time. ”
But he mentioned that something was different now. It appeared that the settlers had become angrier and more extreme. “Wadi said that farm houses are being set on fire, olive trees are being chopped down, cars are being broken into, and land is being stolen. ”
And this is only the place where we live. “He said that if you looked at the next village and the one after, you would see that every village was filled with anger and pain. ” “And it would continue forever. “