On Friday, 23 October 2020, at around midday, members of the Ziben family were harvesting olives in their grove south of the village. Suddenly, seven settlers appeared, surrounded the family and started throwing stones at them.
Brothers Imad (58) and Bashir (64) Ziben took refuge behind an olive tree, while three of their relatives shouted at the settlers and tried to make them leave. The women of the family, who were picking olives about 20 meters away, alerted residents who were working in nearby plots.
At that point, about 20 more settlers arrived, some of them wearing masks and carrying wooden sticks and iron bars. The settlers continued throwing stones at the family, and one stone hit Muhammad Ziben (32) in the head. He was evacuated and given treatment. He later returned to the grove on horseback, at the sight of which the settlers became frightened and left.
After the incident, Muhammad Ziben felt dizzy and was taken to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, where doctors found a laceration in his scalp and bleeding in his ear. He was transferred to al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah, where he was held for observation and discharged two days later.
In a testimony he gave B'Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb'i, Muhammad's father, ‘Imad Ziben (58), a father of four and unemployed metalworker, described the attack:
On Friday morning, 23 October 2020, at around 7:30 A.M., I went with my wife Dalal (54), our children Muhammad (32) and Musa (28), my sister Kifah (53), my brother Bashir (64) and his wife Basma (56) and their son Ahmad (34) to our plot, which is on the southern side of the village. The area is called Khallet al-Ghul. The settlement of Yitzhar was built about a kilometer away from our plot, on land belonging to our village and to neighboring villages.
We own four dunams [1 dunam = 1,000 sq. meters] of land with almost 100 olive trees, 15 almond trees and two grapevines. My grandfather, may God rest his soul, planted all of them and they're large and bear fruit.
I love my land and work it a lot. I don't need coordination to enter it. I work it all year round, including the almond and grape seasons.
I'm very attached to our land and always harvest it with my family, even though I have back problems and can't really pick the fruit. I love being there with my family and want to protect the land from settlers.
After we got there, I sat down and watched the others. At around 12:30 P.M., stones suddenly started flying at us. One of them passed right by my head. I heard my sons yelling. Settlers appeared from behind the trees on the eastern side of the grove. They snuck up on us before we noticed. There were about seven of them and they were wearing masks. They stood on a spot a bit above us, about four meters away, and threw stones at us.
I tried to hide behind a tree with my brother Bashir, who was next to me.
Our sons tried to protect us and fend off the settlers. The women of the family, who were working about 20 meters from us and hadn’t been injured, alerted people from the village who were working in a nearby plot. Meanwhile, another group of about 25 settlers arrived and surrounded us. I saw that some of them were holding wooden sticks and iron bars.
My son Muhammad was hit in the head by a stone and fell down. His brother Musa took him away, and my other sons tried to protect us by throwing stones back at the settlers. The settlers kept on throwing stones at us.
In the end, Muhammad came back riding a horse and drove the settlers out. Meanwhile, several people arrived from the village. Later Muhammad felt dizzy, so I took him to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus.
At the hospital, they X-rayed him. It turned out that he had a tear in his scalp and bleeding in his ear. They transferred him to al-Istishari Hospital in Ramallah because they thought he'd need surgery. In the end, they decided it wasn't necessary because his situation had stabilized and he felt better. He was discharged on 25 October 2020.
The settlement of Yitzhar was established about a kilometer from the Ziben family's plot.