Nablus
- "The settler pulled his knife and then stuck it in Ali's chest, before going back under the protection of the Israeli occupation soldiers and a number of settlers who confronted us and prevented us from approaching the martyr. One of them even put his pistol in the head of my son Firas, and the other pointed his gun at my chest."
With this scene, Naim Harb (Abu Firas) summarized - for Al Jazeera Net - the scene of the settlers' execution of the young Ali Hassan Harb (25 years old), his nephew, inside his land in the village of Iskaka near the city of Salfit in the northern West Bank, last Tuesday, to record the first cases of "fatal stabbing". carried out by a settler against a defenseless Palestinian on his land and among his relatives in recent years, in full view of the occupation soldiers.
Abu Firas states that he went with his sons and nephews to their land, which extends over part of the settlement of Ariel (the largest settlement in the northern West Bank), to confront the settlers who wanted to build a settlement outpost (the nucleus of a new settlement) there, and upon their arrival they found a group of young settlers who fled towards endemic.
But they soon returned with a force of occupation soldiers and other armed settlers, "and they started shooting in the air to terrify us," says Abu Firas, adding, "3 settlers approached us, then one of them infiltrated from among the soldiers and surprised the martyr with a fatal stab and withdrew, so the soldiers confronted us and aimed their weapons. towards us, and they prevented us from providing first aid to the injured.”
A farmer works on his land in the North Salfit area, near the settlement of Ariel (Al-Jazeera)
with premeditation
For half an hour, the young man remained in a state of severe bleeding and the occupation did not allow him to be transferred, after which the young men who gathered started shouting, “They killed him..they killed him.” So the soldiers withdrew, and his relatives pulled him out of them. , says the uncle of the martyr.
According to the uncle, the eyewitness, the settlers had prepared for the crime;
They brought dozens of people from Ariel settlement to build a new outpost, and they carried out the stabbing operation directly and without confrontation and collision with the owners of the land.
Abu Firas said, "We terrified the land as soon as we heard the news, with shoes and clothes in the house, and we did not carry any tools, but the settlers were the ones who threw stones at us."
Abu Firas gave his testimony before the Israeli occupation police, who opened an investigation into the incident, and claimed that they arrested a "suspect" after 24 hours denying the presence of a suspect in the crime, as reported by Israeli media, while the martyr's family confirms that it will continue to prosecute the perpetrators and hold them accountable.
The occupation settlements in the area confiscated more than 70% of the lands of Iskaka village, estimated at 13,000 dunams (a dunam = 1,000 square metres), but the land of the Martyr Harb family did not receive any notifications of confiscation, and it has been planted with olive trees for four decades.
impose a fait accompli
Settler attacks are no longer limited to writing hostile slogans, burning vehicles, homes and mosques, or throwing cars at Palestinians, but have also imposed a fait accompli with heinous killings and liquidations since the burning of the Jerusalemite child Muhammad Abu Khdeir (2014) and the burning of the Dawabsheh family south of Nablus (2015). Finally, Ali Hassan Harb stabbed him in the heart.
With more than 800 attacks, including 250 physical attacks, carried out by settlers since the beginning of this year against Palestinians in the northern West Bank, Ghassan Daghlas, the official in charge of the settlement file in the West Bank, proves the escalation and transformation of settler violence after this violence received official protection and sponsorship from the occupation government.
Under this escalation, the settlers send messages to the Palestinians warning them not to reach their land and confirm that the presence of the occupying army will not hinder their attacks. Rather, according to Douglas, they are “enacting field laws” to reinforce their “colonial conquest” on the land, such as the “Palestinian flag law” where settlers launch attacks to remove Palestinian flags from the streets in the West Bank, and raise their flags in their place.
What is required now, according to Douglas, is to thwart the settlers’ colonial scheme, combine efforts and unity among all Palestinians, and form a mass leadership that strengthens popular resistance, especially since the settlers’ scheme is being implemented openly and targets “the Palestinian’s head and its displacement from its land.”
Settlers take shelter with the occupation soldiers during an attack on the lands of the village of Al-Lubban, south of Nablus (Al-Jazeera)
civil army
From the first moments of the killing of the martyr Ali Harb, the Israeli official and media co-ordination with the settlers began, as the occupation army denied the existence of a specific accused before returning and admitting that he had arrested a 44-year-old “person” and accused him of “murder as a terrorist act and disturbing the judiciary,” as well as About the cover formed by the occupation soldiers in the field at the moment of the stabbing attack.
This confirms that the settlers have been working in partnership with their government and under its protection for many years, and that what is happening is not just cooperation between them, in the opinion of the Palestinian Muhammad Abu Allan, who specializes in Israeli affairs, and therefore “the dissolution of the Israeli government or its survival due to its current political crisis has no effect as long as the approach is one.” ".
In addition, all successive governments support the settlers and legitimize their presence, especially in the outposts, which they classify as "illegal" while providing protection to the settlers when they are established.
Any future government, according to the specialist, will be preoccupied with gaining the satisfaction of the settlers, whom opinion polls expect the parties representing them to advance;
The "Religious Zionism" party, led by the extremist MK Itamar Ben Gvir, is expected to increase its seats from 5 now to 9 in the upcoming elections at the end of the year.
Abu Allan says, "The settlers have one program regardless of the existing government," and that the varying amount of government support is "the result of responding sometimes to American pressures to reduce the size of settlements, and nothing else."
Before killing the martyr Ali Harb, the settlers were on their way to build a settlement outpost. They represent the "civil army" of the occupying power as "Abu Allan", and they are now applying effective Israeli sovereignty and control over the land.
The Israeli affairs specialist states that Roi Tsavage, commander of the Samaria Brigade in the occupation army, said in an interview with settlers in the Elon Moreh settlement (east of Nablus), "They say that the army and the settlers work together, but we and the settlers are one body."