Illegal Israeli Settlers Turn to Murder

Last month, Israeli teenager Benjamin Achimeir was murdered while taking sheep out to pasture.  His body was found a day later, after a massive search involving the Israeli police, military, air force, intelligence services and thousands of volunteers from the settler community. But for some illegal settlers, it was not enough.  

Elisha Yered, a former spokesman for MP Limor Son Har-Melech and extremist settler suspected in the murder of a Palestinian man last August, posted in a WhatsApp group for settlers. "Shabbat Shalom, it's been nearly 24 hours of heavy suspicion that Benjamin was kidnapped from the pasture and still the obvious measures have not been taken," Yered wrote.

The same message was repeated in various settler WhatsApp groups later that morning. It called on the settlers to take matters into their own hands - "crowning" of nearby Palestinian villages (a term for blocking residents from leaving or entering), "home to home searches", and "collective punishment against the murderous Arab population".

The message also contained a list of meeting points. Hours later, a similar message would circulate in the settler groups but with fire emojis attached to each location, as well as calls from individual settlers to "eliminate the enemy", "exterminate the beasts", and - referring to a nearby Palestinian village - "let all of Duma burn".

What followed was a wave of shooting and arson attacks across 11 Palestinian villages in which a dozen homes and more than 100 cars were torched, thousands of animals were slaughtered, four people were shot dead and scores of others were seriously wounded. In the weeks since, five Israeli settlers have been arrested in connection with the reprisal violence, and one Palestinian is being held in connection with the murder of Benjamin Achimeir.

Although Achimeir's body was found very close to his farm, the rampaging settlers attacked Palestinian villages up to 4 miles away. Records of some of their WhatsApp group chats that day, as well as testimony from Palestinian officials and families in the villages that came under attack, paint a picture of an organized campaign of revenge that was incited in part using WhatsApp, carried out by coordinated groups on the ground, and targeted against ordinary Palestinians with no apparent connection to the murder of Benjamin Achimeir other than the bad luck of living nearby.

The rampage was among the most intense and systematic settler attacks in the West Bank for decades. In the months since the Hamas attack last October, according to Israeli human rights groups, violence against West Bank Palestinians has surged dramatically and the settlers have acted with near-impunity.

Two days after the attacks began, with parts of Duma and al-Mughayyir in ruins, and many residents still in hospital, Adar Lpair, a 29-year-old DJ from Achimeir's settlement, who had offered in a WhatsApp group to drive people away from Duma after the attacks, posted on Facebook.  "Thank you to all the hundreds and thousands of brave men who came out to take revenge," he wrote. "Blessed are the eyes that saw Duma and al-Mughayyir on Saturday."

That day also saw Palestinian Noor Abu Rasheed return home from Ramallah Hospital, her legs bandaged, to the dilapidated tent her family now shares next to their burned home. Two weeks after the attacks, she was with her family in the remains of their home as they cleared out the last of the blackened furniture. "My hope is to return to school and finish my exams," Noor said, looking down at the place on her leg where she was shot. Then she looked up, and smiled. "If I stay alive," she said.