Settler charged with terror offenses over shooting attack on Palestinians in October
Shmuel Zafran, 31, from the illegal Havat Gilad outpost, fired 18 rounds from an army-issued assault rifle at a family harvesting olives, wounding 2
The State Attorney’s Office filed an indictment on Thursday against a 31-year-old Israeli settler for shooting at a Palestinian family in the northern West Bank, charging him with aggravated assault with a terrorist motive.
According to the indictment, Shmuel Zafran fired 18 rounds from an assault rifle at the Palestinians on October 29, 2024, as they attempted to harvest olives in a grove in the northern West Bank between the Palestinian village of Immatin and the Havat Gilad illegal outpost, where Zafran lives.
The attack left two people wounded, one of whom required multiple surgeries after a bullet broke his left leg.
Zafran was charged in the Central District Court in Lod with two counts of an act of terrorism of deliberately causing injury with aggravated intent, punishable by up to 40 years in prison.
He was released to house arrest during the investigation, but prosecutors requested that he be held in custody until the end of proceedings against him.
“There is a reasonable basis for the fear that he will endanger the security of the Arab public, wherever they may be, and the public in general,” said the State Attorney’s Office in a statement.
The indictment said Zafran saw the family harvesting olives — in an area where doing so was permitted — went home, put on his IDF uniform even though he was not on reserve duty at the time, took his army-issued M-4 assault rifle, got in a car with two other friends, and drove up to the Palestinians.
He approached the family and at a distance of 15 to 20 meters began firing in the air with his rifle and shouting at them to leave, according to the indictment.
One of the Palestinians, named only as N, began to flee, but Zafran fired shots at him as he fled, hitting him in the leg. N’s wife, named as R, threw herself over her husband to protect him, while Zafran continued shooting at the family members as they fled, taking the injured N with them.
Another member of the family, Muhanad, was injured in the forehead by shrapnel as a result of Zafran’s shooting. The indictment accused Zafran of committing the attack as an act of terrorism and due to “racist motives against Arabs.”
An attorney from the Honenu legal organization, which represents Israeli defendants accused of nationalistic crimes, claimed Zafran had “felt a danger to his life and the life of the residents of the settlement” from the presence of the family and that he fired in the air and into the ground in order to “distance” the Palestinians from the area.
The Honenu attorney also claimed that the family went to the olive groves without coordinating with the local IDF brigade commander and that Zaafran had been subjected to “massive stone throwing” during the episode.
The incident comes against the background of a series of attacks perpetrated by Israeli extremists against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, including setting fire to homes and vehicles in a number of villages in recent weeks.
Israeli authorities have been accused of turning a blind eye to claims of rampant settler violence, particularly since the start of the Gaza war, with many attributing the lack of response to the government’s far-right flank, including former national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who had previously been a lawyer known for defending settlers accused of violent attacks. There have been few arrests and even fewer convictions, according to observers.
Police Commander Avishai Muallem is currently under investigation by the Department of Internal Police Investigations over allegations that he faked investigations into settler attacks to please Ben Gvir and earn a possible promotion. A number of Ben Gvir associates have been summoned for questioning in the probe, including his former chief of staff Chanamel Dorfman, and former Religious Zionism MK Zvi Sukkot, who was questioned on Thursday.
Israel’s failure to rein in settler violence led the Biden administration to begin issuing sanctions against violent extremists in the West Bank last year. That regime was ended last month by new US President Donald Trump, as part of a flurry of executive orders signed on his first day back in office.
