Occupied Jerusalem - The

crimes of the Israeli settler gangs against the Palestinians remind, at this stage, of the role of the Zionist gangs - including the "Palmach", "Irgun", "Haganah", "Stern" and others - in killing and displacing the Palestinian people during the Nakba (1948), and reflects thought The terrorist rooted in the Zionist movement's project to settle in Palestine.

These gangs committed famous massacres in Palestinian history, including the massacres of Deir Yassin, al-Tantura, Balad al-Sheikh and Abu Shusha, with the aim of displacing them.

It is the same mentality that carried out the Kafr Qassem massacre in 1956 to terrorize the Palestinians in the Triangle area and force them to immigrate to Jordan.

For decades, successive Israeli governments have employed settler groups to operate in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, providing them with legal cover and financial and political support.

These groups also enjoyed the support of rabbis, and crimes committed with impunity.

Israeli police data showed that only 3.8% of settler attacks against Palestinians ended in indictments.

The human rights organization Yesh Din asserted that "the Israeli law enforcement apparatus has allowed the settlers to continue over the years, amid the failure of the Israeli police to address the settlers' violence against Palestinians."

Since the widespread confrontations with the occupation in Jerusalem, the West Bank and the interior in May 2021, and the recent military aggression on the Gaza Strip, settler gangs have escalated their attacks on Palestinian villages, homes and property.

These attacks are led by prominent right-wing activists Yehudit Katzover and Nadia Matar, along with Yossi Dagan, head of the settlement council in the northern West Bank.

Soldiers of the "Tilal Youth" settler demobilize and have fun in Old Hebron, guarded by the occupation soldiers (Al-Jazeera)

The emergence of settler terrorism in the West Bank

On April 12, 1968, the first organized attack by settlers against Palestinians was recorded, when a group of settlers led by the extremist Rabbi Moshe Levinger stormed the "Eternal River" Hotel in the center of Hebron to celebrate the Passover holiday.

Levinger refused to vacate the hotel owned by the Qawasmeh family to celebrate Easter, and stayed there with a group of heavily armed settlers, and this incident practically constituted the first foothold for settlement in Hebron and the southern West Bank.

The emptying of Al-Shuhada Street in the old city of Hebron from the Palestinians, where the settlers’ terror in the West Bank (Al-Jazeera)

To expand the settlement project

Rabbi Levinger employed the arrogance and intimidation of the Palestinians in Hebron, with the protection of the occupation army, to expand the settlement project there.

After about 10 years of planting it in the heart of old Hebron and controlling the hotel, and with the Likud party headed by Menachem Begin taking power in Israel, the occupation granted facilities to a group of settlers led by Levinger to control real estate and Palestinian properties on the city’s famous Shuhada Street.

In 1980, Begin's government pushed the most extremist settlers to settle in the heart of Hebron, after taking control of the "Dabweya" building, which the settlers called "Beit Hadassah", which is adjacent to the Ibrahimi Mosque.

The occupation government provided legal cover, financial and security support for settlers who persisted in attacks and restrictions on Palestinians to force them to forcibly migrate, and plundered their property and real estate in Al-Shuhada Street, where the Khalili economy is the backbone, until the street was closed by military orders.


secret jewish organization

The early eighties constituted a pivotal point in the organized terrorism led by the settlers, as it revealed the "Jewish secret organization" whose nucleus originated from the heart of the settlements in Hebron, and whose membership was the son-in-law of Rabbi Leviniger.

The idea of ​​the organization began as a “civil group” affiliated with the “Gush Emunim” movement, which is active in supporting the settlers and expanding the settlement project, and under its banner were 27 armed men, the vast majority of whom held high positions in the movement and other settlement organizations. The secret tripartite organization was founded: Menachem Livni and Yehoshua Ben Shushan, and Yehuda Etzion.

The idea of ​​forming the secret organization, which was active until 1984, came in response to the signing of the Camp David Accords, which led to the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty in 1979.

The organization sought to thwart the peace agreement between Tel Aviv and Cairo, as it saw in it the first premise for establishing a Palestinian state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, and as a goal to expand settlements in the West Bank and the Jordan Valley, and not be limited to the Hebron area.

Settlers stormed Al-Aqsa a few months ago and were planning to destroy the Dome of the Rock with a drone (Photo by the Islamic Endowments)

His most prominent operations

The terrorist organization set two main goals on its agenda, the first is to blow up the Dome of the Rock mosque in Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the second is to set up programs to carry out comprehensive and wide attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem, in order to intimidate them and push them to emigrate and settle in their place.

On June 2, 1980, the underground Jewish organization carried out a series of terrorist attacks by detonating car bombs for Palestinian officials, including mayors, in which the mayor of Nablus, Bassam Shakaa, and the mayor of Ramallah and Kareem Khalaf, who had their limbs amputated, were injured in When the mayor of Al-Bireh Ibrahim Al-Taweel survived the assassination attempt.

The terrorist organization discussed a plan to detonate the Dome of the Rock by hitting an aircraft laden with explosives, and laid the foundation stone in its place for the construction of the "Third Temple".

On July 23, 1983, members of the organization carried out an armed attack on students of the Islamic University in Hebron, which resulted in 3 martyrs and 33 wounded.

Settler gangs are active in the Old City of Hebron to seize Palestinian property and restrict them (Al-Jazeera)

hills youth gang

The Hilltop Youth gang is an extremist settler group. Most of its members, numbering in the thousands, live in outposts and tents on the mountaintops of the West Bank. They live in farms and mobile buildings within open areas outside the settlements and on lands privately owned by Palestinians.

On November 16, 1998, then-Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon gave the green light to establish the Hilltop Youth, urging settler youths to "seize the hilltops", seeking to thwart peace talks between Palestinians and Israelis, in particular the implementation of the Wye Agreement. River,” concluded by his political rival, Benjamin Netanyahu, with the Palestinian Authority.

The followers of these gangs, which are the founders of the idea of ​​outposts and pastoral settlement projects, believe in the "Greater Land of Israel";

They consider the Palestinians as intruders and must be expelled from the country to preserve the "Jewishness of the state." They began their terrorist activity in the West Bank, to expand later and extend to both sides of the Green Line.

Racist slogans of the "price tag" gangs on the walls of the homes of citizens in Kafr Qassem (Al-Jazeera)

price tag gangs

With the incursion of the settlement project into the West Bank, the Jordan Valley and Jerusalem, the domination of the settlers over the Israeli right-wing camp, and the international community’s attempts to push for a two-state solution, terrorist attacks and attacks on Palestinians, their property and lands appeared in the year 2008.

The attacks and attacks took place under the name of "price tag", and were launched from the settlement of "Yitzhar", as they came in retaliation against the Palestinians for their role in the popular resistance or armed operations carried out against the occupation, as well as in an effort to obstruct any direction to renew the path of negotiations with the Palestinians.

Since then, hundreds of terrorist operations and attacks on Palestinians are recorded annually, as well as mosques, churches, cemeteries and archaeological sites whose Arab and Islamic historical monuments are destroyed and replaced with false Biblical monuments.

This gang, whose members are estimated to be in the thousands, is also active in throwing stones at Palestinian vehicles, setting fire to Palestinian properties and homes, uprooting trees, destroying crops, spraying them with pesticides and poisoning livestock, and seeking to seize Palestinian lands and establish agricultural and tourist settlement facilities.


political support

The “price tag” gangs enjoy broad support from the settlers in general, in addition to significant support from the Jewish parties in the right-wing camp, such as the Yamina party headed by Naftali Bennett (the current Israeli Prime Minister), the Likud headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, and the head of the “Azma Yehuda” party, the Knesset member. Itamar Ben Gvir, and the leader of the "Religious Zionism" party, MK Bezalel Smotrich, also supported the rabbis.

Despite the hundreds of attacks carried out by "price tag" gangs annually, the occupation authorities claim that there is a secret-led organization that directs the activities and operations of gang members and determines their goals.