‘There’s no justice’: Palestinian villagers reel after brutal settler, IDF rampage

JINBA, West Bank — The residents of the Palestinian hamlet of Jinba in the South Hebron Hills region of the West Bank have been reeling from a brutal Friday raid on their homes by settler extremists, which left three men hospitalized, including a 15-year-old boy in intensive care due to severe injuries to his head.

Immediately following the violent assault against the residents of the ramshackle dwelling, IDF forces — among them local settlers who have been mobilized — arrested 22 male residents of Jinba. The same units then raided the hamlet in the dead of night hours later, destroying food products made in the village, smashing windows and laying waste to a school and clinic.

Speaking with The Times of Israel in Jinba, residents accused IDF soldiers of standing by during the settler rampage and failing to stop the violence and of blocking a Red Crescent ambulance sent to Jinba to evacuate the wounded for over two hours.

They also accused the IDF unit which raided their homes at night of carrying out wanton destruction and of acting “vengefully,” expressing no hope that anyone would be brought to justice.

“The boy was bleeding out of his mouth and out of his ears,” said Jinba resident Layla Ibrahim Muhammad as she recalled the attack.

“When the soldiers came, we said, ‘Bring an ambulance,’ but they didn’t help. We said, ‘Someone is going to die lying on the ground,’ but no one listened to us.”

The impact of the two-stage assault was still in clear view in different parts of Jinba on Sunday.

Blood from two victims, a 64-year-old father and his 15-year-old son, was spattered about the courtyard of their home and the entrance to the cave dwelling where they live. The remnants of a security camera hung smashed from a wall.

In a separate part of the hamlet, windows were broken, the school was heavily vandalized, and the dwelling’s clinic was wrecked, with the debris of destroyed fittings and appliances strewn all across the floor.

Two police investigators arrived in the village during this reporter’s visit and took testimony from some of the residents, although they did not take forensic evidence from the scene.

The police did not reply to a request for comment as to the status of the investigation and whether any of the assailants have been questioned, detained, or arrested.

Arrests, let alone indictments or convictions, are highly rare in cases of settler violence. The head of the police’s West Bank division is currently under investigation for refusing to crack down on the phenomenon in order to curry favor from far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

GRAPHIC FOOTAGE: Security camera footage shows settler extremists beating Qusai al-Amur in the courtyard of his home in the Palestinian West Bank hamlet of Jinba, March 28, 2025. (Courtesy the al-Amur family)

IDF disciplines troops

The IDF issued a statement on Monday night announcing that it had disciplined several officers and troops for vandalizing Palestinian property in Jinba after an investigation it conducted into the incident.

The IDF’s statement did not address questions by The Times of Israel regarding the villagers’ claims that troops had stood by while the settler extremists attacked residents and prevented a Red Crescent ambulance from evacuating the wounded.

“The commander [of the IDF’s Central Command,] Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, concluded that this was a severe incident that contradicts the level of professional and ethical [conduct] expected of IDF soldiers in operational activities in general and in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) in particular,” the military’s statement said.

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir went to Jinba himself to investigate the incident on Sunday.

The raid on Jinba was the latest in a series of violent settler attacks against Palestinian hamlets in the South Hebron Hills region, known by Palestinians as Masafer Yatta, over the last few weeks, in which extremists have assaulted and terrorized Palestinian residents, destroyed their property, and harassed them as they graze their livestock and do agricultural work.

Masafer Yatta was the subject of a joint Palestinian-Israeli documentary called ‘No Other Land,’ which won an Oscar earlier this year.

Nidal Younis, the head of the Masafer Yatta council and one of the 22 arrested on Friday, told The Times of Israel that “fear and anxiety are dominating people’s lives” in the region. He accused the Israeli government, army and police of complicity in the violence.

Rampage: Part 1

During the assault on Friday morning, some 20 masked men armed with clubs and rocks rampaged through the hamlet, beating the residents and destroying property, residents said.

Hours earlier, a masked Israeli man on a quad bike, apparently from a nearby settlement or illegal outpost, approached a Palestinian shepherd who was grazing his sheep on pasture land belonging to Jinba located several hundred meters outside the hamlet.

Video footage of the incident shows the masked man beginning to harass the shepherd and then shoving him to the ground.

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את השקרים של משטר אפרטהייד קל מדי להפריך. המשטר מתרץ את המתקפה על ג'ינבה ביממה האחרונה באמצעות סיפורים על מתנחל שהותקף, אבל את הסרטון המצורף צילם הרועה הפלסטיני באדמתו הפרטית ובו רואים את המתנחל שועט לעברו, ותוקף. התוקף לבוש בדיוק באותם בגדים כמו המתנחל שטוענים ש"עבר לינץ'" https://t.co/tnzIYYbbLi pic.twitter.com/c9IF2QWJqS

— מחוץ לעדר (@masafering) March 29, 2025

Following that incident, settler activists accused “rioting Arabs” of attacking two “Jewish shepherds,” and published images of an apparently injured Israeli man wearing the exact same clothing as the masked man on the quad bike, as he was receiving treatment from Magen David Adom paramedics.

It is unclear exactly how that man and the second Israeli were injured, although one resident of Jinba stated that during one stage of the raid on the hamlet, some of the villagers had tried to defend themselves and repel the settlers.

While the exact sequence of events is unclear, it appears that following the incident with the shepherds, some two dozen settler extremists entered Jinba at around 8:45 a.m.

During their rampage, they severely beat three villagers, including Aziz al-Amur, 64, his 17-year-old son Qusai, and his 15-year-old son Ahmad.

Qusai was beaten first, with video footage showing one attacker assaulting him repeatedly with a club, then another assailant smashing him in the head with a rock, causing him to fall to the ground, whereupon two other assailants kicked and beat him. Then, the first assailant returned to ferociously club Qusai repeatedly as he lay prostrate on the ground.

Following the assault on Qusai, Ahmad and Aziz were then also subjected to severe beatings inside their home.

Aziz suffered head and chest injuries and underwent surgery for skull fractures; Ahmed was in intensive care as of Sunday, and Qusai suffered a broken arm, bruises and cuts. At least two other villagers were also injured in the attack.

Aziz and Qusai were discharged from the hospital on Sunday and filed complaints to the police over the incident. Ahmad remained hospitalized.

Two other men, Maher Mohammed and his son Osama, required medical attention due to the assault, with Maher undergoing tests on his kidneys and Osama having required hospitalization.

Rampage: Part 2

Following the incident, an IDF force including soldiers from the local IDF regional defense unit which is manned by local settlers, entered Jinba an hour or two later and arrested 15 men and seven minors from the village on suspicion of assaulting the two Jewish shepherds.

Villagers told The Times of Israel that two residents of the nearby Talia’s Farm illegal outpost were part of the unit that entered Jinba and arrested the villagers. Talia’s Farm has received state funding from the Agriculture Ministry despite being illegal.

Jinba resident Issa Younis Hamad Abu Aram said that he and the other villagers detained by the soldiers were handcuffed, blindfolded and taken to a nearby military base. Two hours later, they were taken by bus to the Kiryat Arba police station where they were held for hours without water.

When the daily Ramadan fast ended, they were given just one bottle for all 22 detainees.

At around 11 p.m., they were finally given sufficient water for everyone, Abu Aram continued.

Of those arrested, 15 were released in the early hours of Saturday morning, while seven remained in detention and were set to have a court hearing on Tuesday.

The IDF and police did not report any arrests of settlers suspected of attacking the villagers.

Rampage: Part 3

The settler raid was not the last of the violence Jinba’s residents were to endure.

In the dead of night, around 2 a.m. on Saturday, the IDF’s regional defense unit returned to Jinba and ransacked the village, terrifying its remaining residents, most of whom were women since the majority of the men had been arrested.

The IDF originally stated that the unit had been searching for weapons in the village, although it later said that the incident was under investigation.

During the search, the soldiers emptied the contents of cupboards, fridges and freezers and threw them all over the homes, residents charged.

They allegedly destroyed several dozen liters of yogurt, butter and other dairy products made in the village by pouring them on the floor, as well as several dozen liters of olive oil. They also slashed open sacks of wheat.

In Abu Aram’s home, soldiers allegedly threw ash from a heating furnace all over the residence and smashed his toilet.

The soldiers vandalized an Italian-funded school, smashing windows and turning classrooms upside down, residents said. IDF personnel rampaged through Jinba’s clinic, destroying a sink in one of the medical rooms and flinging the furniture and contents of the facility all across the floor.

During the search, the soldiers ordered around 20 women and young children who had been sleeping in the same home together for safety purposes to get out of the house, and forced them to kneel on the ground with their hands on their heads, the residents said.

They also opened the gates to a barn housing lambs, five of which escaped as a result.

‘The soldiers didn’t intervene’

Layla Ibrahim Muhammad, Abu Aram’s wife, said she saw the settler attack unfold.

She said that after the al-Amur family members were assaulted, it took two hours before the IDF soldiers allowed the Red Crescent ambulance the villagers had called to enter Jinba and take the father and his sons to the hospital.

“The soldiers saw the attack, they allowed it to happen and didn’t intervene,” Layla alleged regarding the initial settler attack.

“We shouted for the soldiers to intervene, but they didn’t. When people tried to defend the village, that’s when they intervened and started making arrests.”

Layla was also one of the women who were forced out of their homes in the middle of the night during the IDF search raid late Friday night.

When the soldiers approached the lamb barn, Layla went up to them to tell them what was inside, but one of the soldiers pointed his rifle at her and told her to move away, she said.

Tharwat Issam Muhammad, 48, described how one soldier approached the crib in which her four-month-old granddaughter was sleeping. The soldier asked what was in the crib, and when Tharwat told him there was a baby he nevertheless yelled at her to remove the blanket so he could see, she said.

Tharwat’s 12-year-old grandson, who has a hearing and vision impairment, was among those detained earlier in the day. “They came to the village to take vengeance,” alleged Tharwat, saying that she and all the other women and children had been terrified during the raid.

Asked if she believed those responsible would be brought to justice, Layla said: “We are a people living in injustice.” She said that it was official state forces who were responsible for the second part of the raid, and who failed to stop the first part. “In Israel, there is no justice,” she averred.

“Even before the attacks, we lived in fear and trauma all the time. We were afraid to take the sheep out. The settlers come right up to our houses with their sheep.” Layla continued.

“The police need to protect us. Even the media didn’t come in time. The settlers make false claims against us, then they attack us and then go to complain about us. If the government acted justly, this wouldn’t happen.”

“We are in great fear to continue living here,” said Maysoun Ahmad Issa Hammad, 53. “Our children say, ‘We don’t want this life,’ but we older ones still want to stay.”