Israeli West Bank settler tells BBC attacks on Palestinians are justified as revenge

An Israeli settler in the Bank, interviewed by the BBC, asserted that assaults on Palestinians are justified as retaliatory acts.

**Watch: Israeli settler challenged in rare access to West Bank outpost**

Havat Gilad, an Israeli settler outpost situated deep within the occupied West Bank, spans several hilltops, with its structures and basic block houses clearly visible from nearby Palestinian villages.

Last weekend, a wave of settler attacks targeted Palestinian villages in the area. This followed the death of an Israeli security guard from Havat Gilad during a confrontation between Palestinians and Israelis in the village of Tal last Friday. The incident also resulted in the deaths of four Palestinians and an Israeli soldier, though the initial cause of the confrontation remains disputed.

After spending the weekend conversing with Palestinians in the vicinity of Havat Gilad, we proceeded into the outpost to question a resident about the violence and the expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

It is uncommon for international media organizations like the BBC to gain access to these outposts. However, on this occasion, Yehuda Shimon, a lawyer representing Israelis accused of violence against Palestinians, agreed to speak.

He stated that the attacks on Palestinian villages last weekend were justified as revenge for the killing of the outpost's security guard.

"I think now, after they killed one Israeli, we need to kill all the people in Tal and Sarra, even Jit and Farata," he declared, naming the Palestinian villages closest to the outpost.

When confronted with the implication that he was equating one Jewish life with hundreds or even thousands of Palestinian lives, he responded, "No, millions. One Jewish life, it's 10 million [Palestinians]."

**'Israeli settlers laid siege to our home': Inside a Palestinian village under weekly attack**

**BBC speaks to Palestinians targeted by Israeli settlers**

When challenged about the racist nature of his statement, he did not deny it.

"Yes, I know," he replied. "But this is the truth, because God chose us [and] because of this you are jealous."

These extreme viewpoints, which many Israelis reject, are crucial for comprehending the ongoing conflict in the West Bank, as Israeli settlements and outposts expand and violence against Palestinians escalates.

Many settlers here, particularly in unauthorized outposts like Havat Gilad—constructed without Israeli planning permission or legal oversight—perceive the West Bank as land divinely granted to the Jewish people.

Both Israel's official settlements and its unauthorized outposts are considered illegal under international law.

Havat Gilad was established over two decades ago in memory of an Israeli security officer murdered by Palestinians. It comprises a loosely scattered collection of houses with a vineyard situated high on one hill.

During our visit, a row of recently burned buildings was visible near the entrance. Shimon attributed this to an arson attack by Palestinians. Israeli media, however, reported that police were treating the fire as accidental, caused by cigarette butts discarded from a car window.

**Settlers at Havat Gilad say houses there were burnt down by Palestinians. Police say the cause was accidental.**

The Israeli government has previously indicated its intention to legalize Havat Gilad. Peace Now, an Israeli organization that monitors settlements, states that the government has been unable to do so because much of the land it occupies is recognized by Israel as privately owned by Palestinians. Instead, the government has designated a parcel of land to the south of the outpost as state land to facilitate settler construction there.

Shimon dismissed these concerns, asserting that international law was irrelevant because the Bible granted Jews their right to West Bank land.

He criticized the Israeli government and army for not adequately supporting Jewish claims to the land, despite a significant expansion of settlements and outposts under the current Israeli government and the presence of far-right religious-nationalist ministers in the cabinet who are driving this expansion.

He also criticized the Israeli army for not using lethal force often enough against Palestinians during confrontations with Israeli settlers.

"The Israeli government and the Israeli army, they like the United Nations – if Palestinians come and Jewish people come, [they] don't kill the Palestinians, [they] just separate the people," he said. "Afterwards, because they don't kill Palestinians, the Palestinians kill us."

Figures for those killed and injured in the West Bank contradict his assertion.

The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), which tracks these numbers, reports that 64 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank from the beginning of this year until July 20. Of these, 18 died during settler attacks.

At least 12 of those were killed by settlers, three by Israeli forces, and in three other instances, it is not yet clear whether soldiers or settlers were responsible. OCHA states that one Israeli was killed during the same period.

The number of injuries inflicted by settlers during these attacks has sharply increased to more than three per day this year, according to OCHA.

An Israeli soldier who recently served in the West Bank told me he only ever witnessed fear on the faces of Palestinians, and "never on the face of any Jew that lived there."

When challenged on this, Shimon accused the global media of "buying the narrative of the Palestinians," alleging that every Palestinian in the area owned two guns and was preparing to replicate the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023.

"If we don't wake up and drop them all from this area, from all areas of Israel, even Gaza too, they will come back, and come back [again]," he warned.

The conflict between Israeli settlers and Palestinian residents in the West Bank is not an equal one.

Israel occupied the territory during the 1967 Middle East war and has since constructed hundreds of settlements and outposts there, housing over half a million Jews.

These settlers are protected by Israel's powerful army and by local armed security units staffed by settlers themselves.

**Havat Gilad is one of hundreds of illegal outposts which have sprung up across the West Bank in recent years.**

Israelis in the West Bank remain subject to Israel's civilian law and enjoy extensive freedom of movement, while Palestinians are subject to Israel's military occupation and military courts, and face severe restrictions due to road closures and checkpoints—a system described by some prominent human rights groups as "apartheid."

Israel has rejected this label as "absurd and distorted."

When asked about the Palestinian residents of the West Bank, Shimon presented three options: live peacefully under Israeli rule and ownership of the land; voluntarily emigrate to other Arab or Muslim nations; or "if you don't want to make peace with us, and you don't want to get out, I don't have a choice: I must kill you, and I kill you all," he stated.

This vision from a radical settler bears a striking resemblance to a plan outlined by Israel's current Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in a blueprint published in 2017, before he joined the government.

In that plan, he proposed a future for the West Bank where Palestinians would be instructed to abandon any struggle for a Palestinian state and live quietly under Israeli rule. Those who had "difficulty letting go of national ambitions" could leave the territory, he said at the time, and those who remained and continued armed struggle against Israel would be killed by Israel's armed forces.

More recently, while in government, he has advocated for the "voluntary migration" of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip and the re-settlement of Israelis there, and has characterized Palestinian identity as "an invention."

One Palestinian living within sight of Havat Gilad told me she constantly watches the outpost from her window for signs of an imminent settler attack.

Many Palestinians we spoke to expressed feeling unprotected—that Israel's occupying army was focused on protecting Israeli settlers, that their own security forces were absent, and that the international community had abandoned them.

"It's a very bad situation," one told me. "Europe is busy, America is occupied with Iran, China doesn't care, Russia is fighting Ukraine, the UN are finished and the Arabs have internal problems. We don't know what we can do."

From Havat Gilad, the nearest Palestinian villages are less than a mile away, yet the landscape here is divided by Israeli law, Israeli power, and mutual hostility.

**Israeli settlers set fire to mosques, cars and farm land in West Bank, Palestinians say.**

**His father had just been buried. Then West Bank settlers forced him to dig up the body.**