HEBRON: The Israeli settlers who attacked Hassan Arman’s village of Jit in the occupied West Bank had a simple aim, he says: “To burn, kill, or destroy” — all of which took place on Thursday night.

Residents hid in fear while dozens of settlers ransacked their northern village, burning homes and cars, until eventually a young Palestinian man was shot dead.

Arman, whose car was destroyed by fire during the attack, said he had “never seen anything like it” in Jit as he opened the charred door of his vehicle. Inside, everything had melted, leaving just a skeleton of twisted metal.

When the Jewish settlers reached his house, they were “in full uniform, armed with knives, a machine gun and a silencer”, he said.

A few houses down, Muawiya Al Sada struggled for words as he stood in the scorched remains of his living room. Only the burnt wooden frame of his sofa remained after the cushions and fabric went up in flames.

“After they burned the house there, they came to this house, broke the windows, and threw firebombs — Molotov cocktails — inside,” he said, while shards of glass from his window panes crunched under the weight of his boots.

Sada and his neighbours then heard gunshots which they later learned caused the death of Rashid Sulait, 23, who was said to have been shot in the back.

After that, “there was a brief period of calm, and then the army entered [the village]”.

Mourners in the streets

Crowds gathered for the funeral on Friday where the young man’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, was borne aloft by mourners and carried through the streets.

At the funeral, his uncle Muhammad Sada said: “A bullet came from behind him and exited the other side, and he was martyred. It was not the army who fired the bullets, but the settlers.”

Television footage showed masked men in black hoodies emerging from a field, setting fire to a car and breaking into a home, then setting upon a villager when he tried to chase them away.

The Israeli army said it dispersed the settlers from Jit, detaining one Israeli civilian.

The Palestinian Authority, which administers the occupied West Bank from Ramallah, called the attack organised state terrorism.

Israel’s president and prime minister both denounced the attack, which drew widespread condemnation from the United States, the United Nations, France, Germany and Britain.

Violence in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory, has surged during the Gaza crisis.

Israeli settlement of the occupied land — considered illegal under international law — has also hit new records since the October.

Since then, at least 633 Palestinians have been killed in violence with settlers or Israeli troops, according to the Palestinian authorities.

Eighteen 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in attacks.

Published in Dawn, August 17th, 2024