Beit Furik, Nablus District: Israeli settlers attacked houses with stones, torched a convenience store, a truck and a car

On Wednesday, 4 December 2024, at around 4:30 A.M., the Shhadeh family, who live on the western side of the village of Beit Furik, woke up to the sound of shouting and thumps on the walls of their home. Out of their window, they saw about 40 masked settlers who had spread out through the neighborhood, attacked houses with stones, and set fire to a grocery store and a car owned by the family. The settlers also set fire to a storage unit still under construction and owned by another family, where the Shhadeh family parked their truck, burning the truck along with sacks of animal feed and a sofa that were also stored there.

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Village residents went out to repel the settlers, and mutual stone-throwing ensued, lasting several minutes. The settlers then left. The residents managed to put out the fire in the car after it partially burned. A fire truck arrived from the center of the village only after about an hour. By then, the fire had consumed most of the property.

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Saja Muhammad Malitat, 21, the mother of a baby, spoke about the attack on her parents’ house in a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i that day:

I looked out the window and saw about 40 masked settlers scattered around the neighborhood. I saw my car, which I’d parked in front of the house, on fire. The convenience store my mother, Sanaa Shhadeh, 43, owns was also on fire, and I also saw flames coming from the storage unit next to our house, where my father parks his truck. The settlers burned that too.

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I couldn’t believe my eyes. I was shaking with fear. We were shocked. My mother and sisters were crying, and I looked out the window, shocked by what they did. I didn’t know what to do or how to act. I called my husband, and he called the fire department. He also called villagers to come help us. The villagers came and managed to get the fire engulfing my car under control. The fire truck arrived only after about an hour, when the fire had already consumed the rest of the property.