On Tuesday, 26 July 2022, at around 5:00 P.M., seven settlers entered farmland on the western side of the village and started planting trees in plots that belong to the Ashtiyeh family. A village resident who noticed them alerted the landowner, ‘Abdallah Ashtiyeh (37), who arrived at the site within several minutes along with two other residents. Ashtiyeh spoke to the settlers and asked them what they were doing there. The settlers called 20 more settlers to the spot, who assaulted the three Palestinians and other residents who arrived with stones and pepper spray.
At that point, Ashtiyeh called the Civil Administration and another resident called for backup from the village. Several minutes later, about 30 residents arrived, and entered into mutual stone-throwing with the settlers. Five soldiers who showed up did nothing to remove the settlers, fired tear gas canisters at the villagers and detained one of them, Hussein Ramadan (66), for several hours. During the confrontation, a settler was wounded in the head by a stone and received treatment from an Israeli ambulance crew that was called to the area.
The settlers also smashed the windows of a car in which members of the local council arrived at the scene, and torched a trailer belonging to a farmer from Nablus, ‘Alaa Hmeidan (34), that is placed about 700 meters away from Ashtiyeh’s land. The settlers then took off, and at around 10:00 P.M., the soldiers let Hussein Ramadan go and left the scene themselves.
In a testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 14 August 2022, ‘Abdallah Ashtiyeh recounted:
At around 5:30 P.M., a village resident called to tell me settlers were planting trees on my land, which is on the western side of the village, near the main road. There are no crops in it right now.
I called the Israeli DCO officer and told him what was going on. He told me to go take photos of them so I could file a complaint. I went over with two friends of mine. There were seven settlers there, digging up my land and planting various kinds of trees there. I asked them what they were doing, and one said they were planting trees and that this was the Land of Israel. I called the officer again, and he said he’d send a jeep.
In the meantime, about four more settlers arrived. One of my friends called his relatives, and three of them came to the plot to help us. At that point, more settlers showed up, more than ten. They started surrounding us, as if to close us in. They swore at us in Hebrew and Arabic, and then one of them pepper sprayed us. I couldn’t see anything and fell down. When I tried to get up, one of the settlers pulled my arm and I fell down again. The settlers started hitting and kicking me. I tried to get up a few times and every time, I fell back down. I had no idea what I was doing. I couldn’t see a thing. Judging by the voices, I figured out more residents from our village had arrived. They helped me get away from there and took me to a clinic, where I got a shot for the pain.
In a testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 14 August 2022, Hussein Ramadan (65) recounted:
My nephew called to tell me what was going on, and I headed over there right away. When I arrived, I saw about 17 to 18 settlers arguing with the young guys who were there, ‘Ammar and Muta’b, and the landowner, ‘Abdallah Ashtiyeh, over who owns the land. The settlers said the land was theirs, and the guys said it had been theirs for generations, [passed down] from grandfather to father, etc. I stood there, trying to understand what they were saying.
All of a sudden, someone sprayed pepper spray in my face and eyes. I couldn’t see a thing. I could feel stones being thrown at me, too, while I couldn’t see. My face burned like fire and it really blinded me. The settlers kicked me and yelled at me, but I didn’t understand what they were saying except the swearing, because they spoke Hebrew. When the army showed up, the settlers let me be. I felt that the soldiers were trying to handcuff me, but they couldn’t. I told them I’ve been paralyzed on the right side of my body since 1988.
The soldiers made me sit on the ground. I was totally exhausted. One of the settlers poured water on me in a provocative, insulting way. Another settler swore at me. I didn’t understand what he was saying, but from his tone and the way he was speaking, it sounded like swearing. I heard an ambulance siren but couldn’t see it because I couldn’t open my eyes. No one came to treat me, and I realized later it was an Israeli ambulance that had come to treat a settler who was wounded by a stone. The soldiers detained me there for several hours. They only let me go at around 10:00 P.M. I walked for about 700 meters to where the settlers had set fire to the trailer. From there, some people from the village took me to the village clinic in a private car. The doctor gave me eye drops, put ointment on my face and bandaged the wound in my head.
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i on 14 August 2022, Walid Zidan (50) recounted:
I went out to where the assault was taking place in a local council car, together with a local council employee named Mahmoud Hindi (27). We parked about 300 meters away from the field that belongs to the Ashtiyeh family, and kept going on foot. When we were about 100 meters away from the plot, I saw a few settlers attacking the residents – beating them up and chasing them. There were about 20-25 settlers there, and I saw more vehicles approaching from the direction of the settlement. We called out to the residents who were under attack to run towards us as fast as they could. The settlers kept chasing them, and we also had no choice but to run and ended up running in the opposite direction of the car we came in. In the meantime, the settlers split up into two groups. One chased us, and the other went over to the car and smashed the windows with rocks.
The residents who had been attacked were in a pitiful state. The settlers had pepper sprayed them. One of them, an older man called Hussein Ramadan who is paralyzed down the right side of his body, couldn’t run away from the settlers and then soldiers caught and detained him. I tried calling the Palestinian DCO to report what was happening, including the attack on the local council car. We also saw the settlers set fire to ‘Alaa Hmeidan’s trailer in a plot about 700 meters away from the site of the assault, even though soldiers were already there. All they did was throw and fire tear gas canisters at us to drive us away. The settlers stayed close to the trailer and then left.
