Unchecked Violence of 'Uniformed' Jewish Settlers(?)

A vehicle slows down and comes to a stop, and just a few meters away from the stopped vehicle, two armed soldiers blocking the road disappear from the video.

Because the video has no sound, it is unclear exactly when the soldiers opened fire on the vehicle.

After the soldiers leave, family members get out of the car, carrying a bleeding child, and transfer to another nearby vehicle.

This 22-second video, posted on social media platform X on June 10 (local time) by the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, captures the final moments of Sam Abu Haikal, a 7-month-old Palestinian infant who was killed by Israeli military gunfire on June 5 while riding in a car with his parents in Tel Rumeida, Hebron, in the West Bank.

On the day of the incident, the Israeli military expressed regret over the child's death, explaining, "The soldier opened fire because they judged that the vehicle was accelerating and rushing toward the soldiers."

However, B'Tselem countered that the military's explanation is far from the truth, pointing to the scenes in the video.

They argued that the driver was slowing down and preparing to stop, maintaining a certain distance from the soldiers and posing no threat whatsoever.

Cases of Israeli soldiers shielding or supporting violence by Jewish settler activists against Palestinian residents, or directly attacking Palestinians as in this case, have been occurring almost daily in the West Bank.

In particular, the situation is growing increasingly severe, fueled by prominent far-right figures within the right-wing coalition government, such as National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees Israel's internal security, and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who oversees finance.

While the world's attention has been focused on the Gaza war triggered by Hamas's horrific surprise attack on October 7, 2023, and the war with Iran that began with preemptive airstrikes by the United States and Israel on February 28, another tragedy is unfolding quietly but in an extremely horrific and violent manner in the occupied West Bank.

The violence wielded by extremist settler activists and the acquiescence of the Israeli military are nothing new.

However, the local daily Times of Israel pointed out that behind the settlers' violence, which has recently escalated to near-terrorist levels of atrocity, lie structural changes within the Israeli military and territorial ambitions that differ from the past.

First, the Israeli military forces responsible for security in the West Bank were redeployed to the Gaza Strip and the Lebanese front after the outbreak of the Gaza war.

To fill the security vacuum, the Israeli military deployed regional defense reserve units, known as "Hagmar," to the West Bank.

The problem is that the vast majority of this unit's members are Jewish settlers living nearby, and the Israeli military has distributed approximately 7,500 weapons to them, granting them authority for guard posts and patrols.

It is no exaggeration to say that Jewish settlers are carrying out their settler movement while armed and wearing Israeli military uniforms.

Horrific situations where individuals with extremist ideologies wear military uniforms to detain and beat innocent Palestinians, or actively abet violence by other civilian settlers, are becoming commonplace.

Some also point out that the true purpose of the violence they wield against Palestinian residents goes beyond blind hatred to a carefully calculated "expulsion" and "ethnic cleansing."

Quamar Mishirqi-Assad, a lawyer for the Israeli human rights organization Haqel, defined their actions to the Times of Israel as "a tool to displace the West Bank and its residents."

Indeed, some Jewish settlers use force and public authority to drive Palestinian farmers from their cultivated lands, set fire to nomadic villages, abuse livestock and pets, and disrupt the olive harvest.

This can be seen as a situation where they destroy the economic foundation of Palestinian residents, forcing them to leave on their own because they can no longer endure it.

According to a report by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), more than 1,700 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced this year alone, leaving dozens of communities in the West Bank completely empty.

An even greater problem is that the perpetrators of these horrific crimes go unpunished.

When civic groups report the violence of settler soldiers to the military, the military authorities reportedly evade prosecution by claiming that the time the crimes were committed was unrelated to their military duties.

Furthermore, the civilian police are reluctant to intervene in cases involving individuals wearing military uniforms.

Even if they become subject to investigation for military crimes, whether a criminal investigation is launched depends entirely on the discretion of the local commander, meaning that proper investigations are not conducted.

Commanders themselves often represent the interests of the settlements or belong to the same community as the settlers, frequently turning a blind eye to the violence of their subordinates.

This perfect "cycle of impunity," formed under the tacit acquiescence of state authorities, is effectively encouraging settler terrorism.

This is why the violence of uniformed Jewish settlers taking place in the West Bank recently is being condemned as "structural and organized terror."

(Photo: Provided by the Israeli military, Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.