'Armed and organised - like a paramilitary group': Inside West Bank village targeted by Israeli settlers

In a picturesque hillside village, in the occupied West Bank, the latest victim of this conflict was being buried.

Day trader, 23-year-old Mahmoud Abdel Qader Sadda was shot dead by Israeli settlers rampaging through his small community.

The village turned out to carry him to his grave.

Boys joined men waiting for the end of Friday prayers. Some wept and consoled each other.

The mood was one of shock and grief.

Jit is a peaceful village we were told, perched high on a West Bank hill it had till now felt aloof and remote from the region’s deepening conflict.

Then the settlers came.

There’s little dispute about what they did. Their every move seems to have been caught on CCTV cameras.

‘What have we done to them?’

Outside one house, masked men doused furniture with fuel before setting it alight. Their prayer strings hung from under their jackets.

Inside, the Arman family sat terrified.

We found them today recovering. Their veranda was burned and sooty, in the middle of the wreckage a baby stroller sat a melted wreck.

The women of the house told us loudly what they thought of the men who came to visit last night.

But eight-year-old Dima was the most expressive.

“I was scared,” she told us. “So scared. I was crying. All the children were.

“Why won’t anyone protect us? It’s wrong what these settlers are doing. They shouldn’t act this way. What have we done to them? We mind our own business.”

There was no one to protect anyone here as the rampage continued.

Across the village, another arson attack was underway also caught on camera.

Settlers run around a car, smashing its windows before igniting a massive explosion.

The Hyundai was owned by Hassan Arman. He seemed to seethe with a barely concealed fury as he spoke.

What he said about the settlers was both revealing and repeated by others.

“They’re not just settlers. They are way past that now. This is a paramilitary group, dressed in uniform, with settlers’ mentality. The attack was not random, it was carefully planned. The armed men were divided in an organised manner.”

Standing outside his mother’s home, its interior blackened with soot, another man up the road repeated that claim. The intruders were organised like paramilitaries and well-armed.

And he said they shouted to the villagers that they would force them to leave the West Bank and go to Egypt or Jordan.

He claimed the settlers also said they had been sent by Itamar Ben Gvir.

Ben Gvir is Israel’s national security minister and a far-right Jewish extremist with a list of convictions for racism and membership of Jewish terrorist organisations.

The Israeli government has condemned this attack, but since 7 October Israeli settlers have launched hundreds of them with almost total impunity.

Critics will say as long as far-right extremists remain in the Israeli government, their supporters will be emboldened to carry out more of these attacks.

‘The Israeli army didn’t help’

The village is overlooked by an Israeli military outpost.

The IDF says it sent troops into Jit to bring order as soon as the attack began. There is a military base nearby.

Not true, we were told.

Mohammed Arman’s mouth was bandaged, injured by a stone thrown by the settlers.

“Of course, the Israeli army didn’t help,” he told us. “They arrived almost an hour and 15 minutes later. They closed off the town. Stopping ambulances, press and firefighters from getting through.”

The UN says it has recorded 1250 attacks by settlers on Palestinians since 7 October, of which 120 ended in fatalities or injuries.

The attacks happen with near total impunity.

The only Israeli arrested last night has since been released.

Israeli authorities have yet to update Sky News on any effort to bring those responsible for the rampage to justice.

This article was originally published by Sky.com. Read the original article here.

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