By admin 
On the first day of the new Palestinian school year, the head-teacher of al-Mughayyir boys’ school arrived at work before dawn, his path illuminated by the first tentative rays of sunlight filtering through the ancient olive trees surrounding the village. His walk, however, was not one of quiet anticipation but of grim necessity, past the freshly installed barbed wire fencing and the reinforced school gates, stark symbols of the escalating settler-related violence that has gripped this community deep within the occupied West Bank. "We are scared," Bassam al Assaf confessed, his voice heavy with the weight of responsibility. "The students are afraid, and their parents are afraid." This pervasive fear is not unfounded. In the year leading up to this somber beginning, six lives in al-Mughayyir have been extinguished, three of them students at the very school Bassam al Assaf endeavors to protect. The surge in settler violence against Palestinians in the region has reached a terrifying crescendo, with the murder of 14-year-old Aws al-Naasan in April, shot dead by a settler just outside the school gates, serving as a particularly brutal marker of this escalating terror.
Waheed Abu Naem, an English teacher at the school, vividly recalls the horror of that day. "I was inside my classroom and two little students came rushing to tell me there were settlers close to the school wall," he recounted, his voice trembling as he spoke of the attack that also claimed the life of his brother, Jihad, killed by an Israeli soldier during the same incident. Waheed’s desperate efforts to shepherd his pupils to safety behind the school’s protective embrace were tragically interrupted. Mobile phone footage, a silent witness to the atrocity, captured the devastating moment Aws was shot. "When I turned him onto his back, I saw lots of blood coming from his nose and mouth, and the bullet in his head," Waheed stated, the memory etched into his soul. "We lost him." The gunfire, he continued, did not cease with Aws’s death; bullets continued to pepper the school building as terrified students sought refuge behind classroom walls or lay prostrate on the floor, their young lives hanging precariously in the balance.
In the immediate aftermath of the April incident, the Israeli military issued a statement asserting that stones had been hurled at a vehicle carrying "civilians including a reservist soldier," prompting the reservist to exit the vehicle and fire at suspects. Israeli media reports indicated that the reservist was subsequently suspended from duty, and an investigation was launched. However, since that fateful day, the grim tally of casualties has continued to rise, mirroring the escalating anxieties of parents. Over the summer months, two more pupils were fatally shot by Israeli forces during settler attacks and incursions into the village, alongside a 19-year-old who had recently graduated from al-Mughayyir school. In both these instances, the Israeli army maintained that its forces had responded to "instigators of a violent riot." The specter of these events has cast a long shadow over the return to school, with some parents, understandably, reluctant to send their children back, leaving three empty desks in classrooms that should have been filled with the vibrant energy of young learners.
Al-Mughayyir, an isolated village situated northeast of Ramallah, finds itself increasingly encircled by burgeoning Jewish settler outposts. Its access is frequently impeded by Israeli forces, who routinely establish ad-hoc checkpoints at the village entrance. In a bid to provide a semblance of security and reassure anxious parents, Bassam al Assaf has overseen the installation of a long barbed-wire fence around the school compound and fortified the gates. Adding another layer of protective vigilance, ambulance crews are now stationed on the road outside the school, and a number of parents have volunteered to maintain a constant presence, waiting outside the school gates throughout the day. "I came because it makes the children feel their parents are with them, that they are safe, it gives them a kind of security," explained Haroon Bishara, whose sons are in the first and second grades. His words, however, are underscored by a profound sense of dread. "We fear for our children more this year," he admitted. "We know the situation is not safe at the school." Yet, this fear is interwoven with a fierce determination not to be driven from their ancestral lands by the relentless pressure of settler attacks.
During the first assembly of the academic year, the pupils of al-Mughayyir were subjected to a constant refrain from their teachers: a set of strict instructions repeated throughout the day. The message was unequivocal: if soldiers or settlers approach the school, do not shout, do not go near them, do not react. The chilling reality of these directives became apparent less than an hour after classes commenced. Through the school windows, two men were spotted, herding sheep through Palestinian fields a few hundred meters from the school, with Israeli soldiers standing guard nearby. Minutes later, another settler with a flock of sheep appeared, their presence a stark reminder of the encroaching threat. "They have got closer to the village since April," observed Abu Naem, his voice laced with weariness. "They used to keep their sheep behind this [hill], but now the soldiers bring the settlers up to the village." Despite repeated requests, the Israeli army was unable to provide a comprehensive response to the allegations detailed in this report prior to publication.
It is crucial to note that all Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are considered illegal under international law. Furthermore, many of the small, ad-hoc settler outposts that have proliferated around al-Mughayyir are also in violation of Israeli domestic law. Yet, an ambulance crew stationed outside the school reported a disturbing shift in the behavior of Israeli forces. Rather than dismantling illegal settlements, they observed Israeli soldiers actively supporting and enabling settler incursions into the village. Hadi al-Naasan, an ambulance driver in al-Mughayyir, corroborated this observation, detailing a significant change in the conduct of Israeli forces over the past year. He believes this alteration directly correlates with the alarming rise in Palestinian deaths and injuries within the village this year. "At the beginning of 2025, settler attacks were few, due to the army’s interventions," he stated. "In 2026, the situation changed completely: the settlers became fully protected by the occupation soldiers. This year, the number of martyrs is higher, the number of injuries is also much higher – and the number of child injuries is higher too."
Hadi, along with other residents of al-Mughayyir, harbors a deeply unsettling conviction that some Israeli settlers are now deliberately targeting children. This tactic, they believe, is a calculated strategy to exert pressure on the adult population of the village, ultimately aiming to force them to abandon their homes. This chilling assertion finds corroboration in a United Nations Commission of Inquiry report published in June, which found that settler attacks had "instrumentalized children as part of a broader coercive strategy to drive Palestinians off their land." The report further described a "pattern of settlers intentionally targeting Palestinian children" during everyday activities such as playing near their homes, walking to and from school, tending to farms, or herding livestock, thereby transforming familiar spaces into zones of pervasive fear. Israel, predictably, dismissed the UN report as a "libellous sham."
Sami Abu Rahma, a sheep farmer, is a firm believer that violent settlers are indeed targeting children. His conviction is rooted in a deeply personal tragedy. At the end of July, his nine-year-old son, Salim, was shot and injured while playing with his siblings on the family’s sheep farm on the outskirts of al-Mughayyir. The bullet remains lodged in his arm. Security camera footage from the farm captures the harrowing moments: Salim points and shouts to his parents about approaching settlers, before fleeing for shelter with his siblings and mother as two gunshots ring out. Salim is then seen clutching his shoulder. "In that moment, you stop thinking; you just feel fear," Sami recounted, his voice thick with emotion. "Fear that, God forbid, [the attacker] was shooting to kill. The first thing in your mind is losing the most precious thing you have." The man who shot his son, Sami stated, resides in an illegal settler outpost that materialized next to the farm in June. This same individual, he revealed, had previously shot at Salim in the same area just a week before the more recent incident. "You no longer feel you can keep them safe in the street, or even at school," he lamented. "The settlers don’t want us to stay here, [they want us to feel] as if there’s no future for us here." Sami is now the sole sheep farmer remaining in the area, the others having been driven away by persistent settler attacks. The settler who shot his son, he added, had repeatedly warned the family to leave their land. "No matter how determined you might be to stay," he concluded with a profound sense of helplessness, "what do you do when settlers start shooting your kids?" The regional settlers council, in response, stated that an off-duty soldier had been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the shooting. They issued a statement expressing regret for any harm to innocent people, "Jews or Arabs," and condemning any act of violence that violates the law. The council also rejected "the attempt to attribute to the entire settlement community in Judea and Samaria acts that have not yet been determined by an investigation, as well as the baseless claim that lawful sheep grazing or Jewish presence in the area are part of a deliberate plan to harm children or drive residents from their homes."
The situation in al-Mughayyir is not an isolated incident but rather a chilling reflection of a broader pattern unfolding across the occupied West Bank. An increasing number of illegal settler outposts are encroaching upon Palestinian villages, accompanied by enhanced protection for settlers from Israeli forces. The attacks themselves have escalated from farms and grazing lands to more densely populated areas, placing women and children at heightened risk. "Children, seeing the army enter, don’t grasp the gravity of the situation," observed Hadi al-Naasan, the local ambulance crew member. "Adults are more aware of how events can unfold." UN figures paint a stark picture of this escalating violence. The number of Palestinians injured during settler attacks, whether by Israeli soldiers or settlers themselves, has seen a sharp increase this year, averaging three injuries per day. The number of injuries inflicted directly by settlers has also risen. This disturbing trend coincides with a significant expansion of Israeli settlements and settler outposts in the West Bank.
Under international law, all Israeli settlements in the West Bank are deemed illegal. Israel’s staunchly pro-settlement government is facing mounting international pressure, including expected sanctions from the UK in response to its settlement policies. Despite the arrest of some violent settlers and reports of a plan by Israel’s prime minister to dismantle illegal outposts in the West Bank, these measures have so far failed to curb the attacks or allay the fears of Palestinians, who point to the swift rebuilding of outposts previously demolished by Israeli authorities. With Israeli elections less than two months away, the Israeli Finance Ministry has advanced plans to take over land registration in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an action described by the Israeli settlement monitor Peace Now as "a clear step towards annexation." Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has attributed settler violence to a "tiny extremist minority," characterizing them in a recent television interview as "150 juvenile delinquents."
Since the beginning of 2025, and up to the end of July 2026, the United Nations has recorded 316 Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israeli forces or settlers, with over 5,600 injuries. During the same period, 20 Israelis have been killed, including one child and eight members of the security forces, and 123 Israelis have been injured. For Palestinian parents who have remained in villages like al-Mughayyir, enduring the escalating settler violence, the looming fear of losing their children if they stay on their land is becoming an unbearable reality, casting a dark shadow over their determination to hold onto their homes and their heritage.
