Armed settlers stormed the Palestinian village of Tuba in the South Chevron Hills area of the West Bank in what appeared to be a calculated attempt to pressure local residents to abandon their homes and land, according to village witnesses.
Residents said that although police were called to the area, they only arrived after the settlers had already departed.
According to Beyond the Herd, an Israeli activist group that supports Palestinians in the South Chevron Hills, the incursion was intended to incite local Palestinians into reacting violently, thereby giving settlers a “pretext” for further aggression. The group said such provocations are a common tactic used by extremists in the area.
One of the settlers identified in the raid was Yissochor Manne, a dual US-Israeli citizen who had previously been sanctioned by the Biden administration for his involvement in attacks on Palestinians. Manne and another American had challenged those sanctions in court, but the penalties were eventually lifted when the Trump administration took office.
Tuba is part of the Masafer Yatta region, a collection of Palestinian villages featured in the Academy Award-winning documentary No Other Land, which focused on settler violence and demolitions carried out by the Israeli military. Since the film’s release, residents say settler harassment has intensified.
Community members maintain that these attacks are part of a broader strategy to displace Palestinians and are often carried out with impunity, as arrests or prosecutions are rare.
Just days earlier, a group of about 50 settlers launched an assault on the village of Duma in the northern West Bank. According to reports, three Palestinians were injured, homes were damaged, and property was set on fire during the attack.
In response to the Duma incident, Defense Minister Yisroel Katz declined to call the violence an act of terrorism. “I don’t define this as ‘terror.’ This is my perspective,” he said.
“There was lawbreaking here, and we must deal with it. We must enforce [the law] against whoever did this,” Katz stated. He continued, “I am against violence, I support enforcing the law,” emphasizing that such behavior cannot be tolerated.
{Matzav.com Israel}