On 3 May 2022, the second day of ‘Eid al-Fitr, at around 6:00 A.M., Fayez Abu ‘Ali (41) and his nephew Ghazi Abu ‘Ali (23) led their flock of 165 to pastureland south of Kafr Malik. After grazing the flock for about three hours, the two sat down to make themselves some tea. At that point, about 10 settlers showed up in two pickup trucks, driving towards them at high speed.
The shepherds panicked and fled, with the settlers giving chase in their trucks. Fayez and Ghazi split up. Fayez rode his donkey, and Ghazi fled on foot. The incident lasted for more than an hour, during which time the settlers chased them in their truck, at some point joined by four others settlers on horseback, who were also bearing clubs. During the chase, the settlers stabbed some of the sheep and stole 24 of them as well as a donkey. Nineteen of the stolen sheep were pregnant. Fayez and Ghazi managed to flee to the nearby village of Deir Jarir, exhausted and bruised, having fallen several times during the escape.
Later that day, at around 3:00 P.M., five members of the Abu ‘Ali family went to the pastureland to try to collect the flock, but had to flee after another group of about 30 settlers showed up, threatening to attack them. The settlers left the family members alone only after a military jeep approached them. As the five men made their way back to their car, they saw settlers puncturing its tires and smashing its windows. Soldiers standing about 20 meters away did nothing, even after they asked them to intervene. The settlers then took a donkey belonging to one of the shepherds and loaded it onto their vehicle, in full view of the soldiers, who stood idly by. Both the settlers and the soldiers then left the scene.
Israeli activists arrived and tried to help the shepherds retrieve the sheep. They also called the police, and an officer visited the outpost. When he returned, he told one of the activists that the sheep had not been located and their owners should file a proper complaint.
This is yet another case that reflects Israel’s policy, which views settler violence as another tool for driving Palestinians out of their lands. That is why the soldiers stood by and did nothing to stop the settlers from harming the shepherds’ property and stealing it. That is why they did not attempt to arrest them after the fact, and is also why the police made do with a token visit to the outpost.
B’Tselem field researcher Iyad Hadad collected testimonies from the family members.
Fayez Abu ‘Ali (41), a father of seven from Kafr Malik, said in his testimony:
At 9:20 A.M., Ghazi and I were sitting in the western area overlooking the bypass road, pouring tea we’d made on a bonfire. We saw two civilian pickup trucks, one red and the other white. They were coming from the direction of the shepherding outpost that was established on Deir Jarir lands, about five kilometers from where we were sitting. The trucks drove towards us on a dirt road that splits off from the bypass road.
At first we thought they might be Palestinian vehicles, but when they were 100-200 meters away from us, they veered into the fields and drove through them towards us at a crazy speed. That’s when I realized they were settlers. I recognized them by their sidelocks. Every truck had four-five settlers, some inside and some in the open cargo bed in the back.
I told Ghazi these were settlers coming to attack us and that we should run away fast. I got on my donkey and fled. Ghazi didn’t have enough time to get on his donkey, and ran on foot. We left the flock there. All we wanted was to escape and save ourselves. The settlers chased us in the pickup trucks on the hill and along rough dirt roads, yelling at us: “Die, Arabs!”, “Stop you son of a bitch,” and things like that.
When I was several hundred meters away from the place where we sat earlier, the red truck swerved to block me. I changed direction to protect myself. The sheep ran after me, but then the white truck stopped in front of them. Four-five settlers got off, blocked the sheep’s path and pushed them.
I ran towards the valley and when I got there, I saw four settlers on horseback further up the hill, 200 meters away from me. They were coming down towards me, chasing me. The four of them were holding clubs with knives or pokers attached to the ends. One of the settlers on horseback chased me but couldn’t catch me. The flock kept running after me.
I kept on running away, occasionally looking back. At some point, they stopped chasing me and I saw them stabbing some of the sheep. Then they went back to chasing me. Every once in a while, I got off the donkey and called the flock to follow me, and then quickly got back on the donkey and continued my escape. I was very scared. I was afraid for my life. I stayed on the rough path to make it hard for them to catch me. I fell three or four times, hitting rocks, but I managed to get up every time and run. At some point, I got off the donkey so I could get away faster. I felt that they wanted to kill me.
After more than an hour, I managed to get to Jad Zidan’s house, which is the nearest house in Deir Jarir. I asked them for help. I was scared and exhausted. I was shaking all over. The settlers saw that I got to the house, and then they turned around and went away. At the house, they gave me water, took care of me and tried to calm me down. I told them about Ghazi, my nephew, and asked them to try and find him. I was very worried about him. I was scared the settlers might have killed him.
The flock followed me all the way to the house. I counted and saw that 24 heads were missing out of 165, mostly pregnant ewes that had trouble fleeing. The settlers caught them, stabbed and then apparently stole them. We could follow what the settlers were doing from Jad’s house. I saw them gathering in the area where they’d stabbed the sheep earlier. The settlers who chased us in the trucks and the ones on horseback were all there. About four army jeeps were now with them, and the soldiers were stopping people from the village from going near the sheep and getting them back. When I was in Jad’s house, five or six Israeli activists also came and tried to retrieve the sheep and donkey that had been stolen, but they couldn’t do it either.
Some relatives found Ghazi in the valley. They got him out of there and brought him to me at Jad’s house. He was very scared, too. I stayed at Jad’s house for an hour. I was helpless. My mouth was dry with fear. I was trembling and my head hurt.
At around 11:30 or noon, a relative came and took me home to Kafr Malik. I left my flock with the people of Deir Jarir until the evening. At 5:00 or 6:00 P.M., I went to the Binyamin police station and filed a complaint. When I got back from there, I was exhausted and in pain, so I went to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah, where they gave me painkillers and discharged me that evening.
Ghazi Abu ‘Ali (23) from Kafr Malik said:
The settlers came in two pickup trucks from a bypass road, from the direction of the shepherding outpost. We knew they were coming to attack us, so we ran away. My uncle Fayez escaped on his donkey. My donkey was a little farther away, so I didn’t manage to get on it and escaped on foot. I kept looking back to see where the settlers were. I saw the flock following Fayez. I ran away using a different route, not far from him. I jumped over terraces and rocks, falling and getting bruised several times. I twisted my foot, but I got up every time and kept running away. At some point, the white pickup truck stopped next to the flock and tried to block its path.
When I got to the valley, which was about a kilometer away from where we’d sat earlier, I saw four settlers on horseback coming from the hilltop. They were holding clubs and sharp objects. They were about 50-100 meters away from me, and I saw them looking towards Fayez and the sheep that were following him. They got off the horses and started chasing us inside the valley. It was hard for them to chase us because of the terrain. I saw them getting close to the sheep and then they stabbed some of them, probably the pregnant ones that couldn’t run away.
In the valley I ran into a relative of mine, ‘Awad ‘Abd al-Karim (27), who was working with his wife on their plot of land. When they saw the state I was in, they drove me in their car to my cousin’s house in Deir Jarir. I was exhausted and felt like I was going to faint. After I rested a little, they splashed water on my face and helped me calm down. I felt a little better.
I fell asleep for a little while and then I woke up in a panic, worrying about my uncle Fayez. I was afraid the settlers had killed him. I found out from village locals that he’d managed to run to Jad Zidan’s house in Deir Jarir, so I went there to see him. When I got there, I saw Fayez was very scared. The people of Deir Jarir told me most of our flock had made it to Deir Jarir, to Jad’s house, but that 19 sheep from Fayez’s flock and five from mine were missing.
Some residents and some of our relatives, as well as a few Israeli activists, tried to get our sheep and my donkey back, but the army wouldn’t let anyone near the settlers.
Nidal Abu ‘Ali (34) from Kafr Malik, who tried to retrieve the flock of sheep, said:
At around 11:00 A.M., I was home when I heard a group of settlers were attacking the flock that my uncle Fayez Abu ‘Ali and my cousin Ghazi Abu ‘Ali had taken out to graze. I heard they’d managed to escape the settlers and get to a house in Deir Jarir, and that the settlers had stabbed and stolen some of the sheep.
I went with four members of our family to the bypass road, to the high area that overlooks the valley. About 100-200 meters away, I could see settlers in two pickup trucks, one red and the other white. I knew these were the settlers who had attacked them, because I was told those were the vehicles they had. There were five other vehicles there besides the two trucks. We couldn’t get to them, because there were three military jeeps between them and us, and they didn’t let us near.
At around 3:00 P.M., they announced on the mosque loudspeakers in the village that settlers were stealing the sheep, and called people to go out there and stop it. We advanced toward the settlers to try and retrieve the flock. When we got to that same area on the bypass road, I saw soldiers and settlers standing there and shortly after that, the settlers drove towards us. It was very frightening because we didn’t know in which direction to run. The only road we could take leads to their outpost, so we got out of the car and started running on foot toward Kafr Malik.
As we were running through the hills and orchards, we occasionally stopped to see how far we were from the settlers and what they were doing. I saw that about 30 of them got out of the vehicles, carrying clubs. One of them had a gun drawn. They shouted at us to stop. I was deathly afraid. We kept running. While they were chasing us, I saw one of the military jeeps follow the setters, who were a few meters away from us by then. When the settlers saw the jeep, they stopped chasing us.
We stopped. We wanted to go back to my car, which was about 100 meters away from us. When I got closer to it, I saw settlers surrounding it, hitting it with clubs, smashing the windows and slashing the tires with pocket knives. The soldiers were standing 20 meters away. They were just watching the settlers without stepping in. I asked one of the soldiers to stop them, but he didn’t care and pretended not to hear me.
The settlers put one of Fayez’s and Ghazi’s donkeys in one of their vehicles, right in front of the soldiers. The soldiers didn’t stop that, either, even though I asked one of the soldiers to stop them and get our donkey back. The soldiers and settlers left the area, and so did we. Even though my car tires were destroyed, I had to get it out of there, because I was scared the settlers would damage it more if it stayed there.
