Headlights from the departing trucks of Israeli settlers danced along the night sky near Rezeq Abu Naim’s destroyed home, his family’s long fight now over.
For two years, settlers from a nearby outpost had tried to drive Mr. Abu Naim from his land, set on the stony outskirts of Al Mughayir, a Palestinian village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Their attacks came at all hours and in all manners, from vandalism and violent threats to beatings, according to the family, and Palestinian and Israeli witnesses.
Through it all, Mr. Abu Naim had hung on, quietly resisting an increasingly aggressive settler campaign to displace Palestinians in the West Bank. His struggle was chronicled in a recent New York Times article on Israel’s escalating campaign for control of the West Bank.
It all came to a head on Saturday when armed settlers descended on his home and viciously beat him, his wife, his daughter and his granddaughter, according to Palestinian and Israeli witnesses.
When his son and 14-year-old nephew tried to come to their aid, both were shot and wounded in the ensuing gunfire, which came from both the settlers and Israeli soldiers who arrived on the scene just after the settlers, according to several Palestinian and Israeli witnesses.
The Israeli military did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
What happened to Mr. Abu Naim’s family is part of a broader effort being waged by settlers across the West Bank, where there has been a surge in displacements, violence and killings of Palestinians at the hands of settlers since the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
While Palestinians consider these West Bank lands part of a future state, many Jews see them as their rightful homeland. Since the 2023 attack from Gaza, Israel’s far-right government has supported an expansion of West Bank settlements, and critics say its military has tolerated an unrelenting violent campaign by settlers against Palestinians.
Shortly after he escaped the shootings, I stood with Mr. Abu Naim in a neighbor’s livestock shelter as he reckoned with his next steps.
“We ran with our lives in our hands,” he said. “There’s no way for us to stay there because they will kill us if we do. It’s over.”
Not long after, he left for the hospital to check on his family and seek treatment for his own injuries.
If Mr. Abu Naim’s struggle is typical of the daily attacks waged by Israeli settlers operating from illegal outposts draped along the mountaintops across the West Bank, then so, too, was his decision to finally abandon his home.
In the last week alone, seven Palestinian communities in the West Bank have been emptied by settler violence, according to Israeli activists tracking the issue.
From the site above Mr. Abu Naim’s home, at least one of those Palestinian villages could be seen on Saturday evening. The metallic clang of homes being dismantled echoed over the valley from Abu Najeh, whose residents had decided that same morning to pull up stakes.
Residents said the violence in Al Mughayir on Saturday began around midday, when a group of about 20 settlers appeared on a hillside opposite the village. They remained there for a few hours, until about 2 p.m., when six men descended the hill and edged up toward Mr. Abu Naim’s home.
Three of the men were armed with assault rifles, witnesses said.
The men entered the home, a tent with bedding and a cave the family was using. There, they attacked the whole family, forcing them into the cave while beating them, according to Mr. Abu Naim’s daughter, Hediya, 37.
“I was trying to hide my father and daughter behind me, but they beat us all,” she said at the hospital after the attack. “We were forced to leave. We defended our home until the very end. We did everything we could.”
When Mr. Abu Naim’s 36-year-old son, Ayham, got word of the attack on his parents, he raced down the hill with others to rescue them. The settlers began shooting at them, and a bullet struck him in the armpit. A 14-year-old nephew, Nassim, was shot in the leg as he fled the gunfire.
The rest of the family managed to escape to a neighbor’s land up the hill, leaving the settlers to destroy the property before departing.
By evening, it appeared the settlers were gone.
At about 6:30 p.m., a few relatives tried to return to the home in hopes of salvaging possessions from the ruin. Some Israeli activists who had camped out for months with Mr. Abu Naim, hoping to prevent his displacement, joined them.
In the distance, the lights from the outpost that the settlers attacked from could be seen, squeezed between overlapping ridge lines.
A drone hovered overhead, and a few of the young Palestinian men perched over Mr. Abu Naim’s home shined their flashlights at it. The drone followed as the group descended to the area just above the home.
Then warning shouts echoed from above that the settlers were returning, prompting all the Palestinians and activists to flee as the drone tracked their movements closely.
When the last lights of settler vehicles carting away looted items barreled over the far ridge line, I accompanied the family and activists as they made their way back down the hill again to the ransacked home.
Solar panels had been cracked, their batteries stolen. Water tanks tipped over. A portable bathroom tilted on its side.
Inside, everything was destroyed. Bags of rice ripped open and thrown on the floor, along with plates and other household items. Broken furniture and spilled drawers.
In their haste to leave, Mr. Abu Naim and his family managed to grab very little, fearing for their lives. They went to stay with others closer to the center of Al Mughayir.
They did manage to save their cats, kittens and two pet rabbits.
Azam Ahmed is international investigative correspondent for The Times. He has reported on Wall Street scandals, the War in Afghanistan and violence and corruption in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.
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