Settler Violence = State Violence

8 June ’09: Bring Ze’ev Braude, the shooter from Hebron, to justice

8 June 2009

On 4 Dec. '08, security forces evacuated the settlement in the a-Ras neighborhood (“the House in Dispute”) in Hebron. The same day, Kiryat Arba resident Ze'ev Braude shot and wounded three members of the al-Matariyeh family. The shooting, which took place in the Wadi Hussein section of Hebron, was filmed by Jamal Abu Sa'ifan with a camera he received in the framework of B'Tselem's  camera distribution project. During the incident, another settler fired into the air and at Abu Sa'ifan and tried to grab the camera from him. A third settler fired into the air and at the family's house.



The footage of the attack. Filmed by Jamal Abu Sa'ifan, 4 December 2008

B'Tselem gave the video tape documenting the incident to the police the same day. Two days later, two of the suspects turned themselves in to the police and were subsequently released. One of them, Ze'ev Braude, was indicted on two counts of causing harm with aggravated intent.

 

The investigation material included evidence as to which the Minister of Defense signed a certificate of privilege, and the evidence was not provided to the defense. Braude's attorney filed an action in the Supreme Court, demanding that the privilege be removed and that he be provided the material. Justice Elyakim Rubinstein held that disclosure of the material is indeed liable to harm state security, but that the defendant's right to due process prevails in this case over the public-security interest. Justice Rubinstein pointed out that, “clearly, a skilled defense attorney could use the material for the benefit of his client, although, in fairness to the Respondent, it should be mentioned that, defense counsel's effort would not necessarily succeed.” The justice also stated that, “at face value, it appears that the privileged material would not completely undermine the Respondent's position. . . But I am of the opinion that, in certain circumstances, it could - and, again, it might be otherwise - change the decision in the file by raising a doubt; and it is not possible to conduct a fair trial where there is material that the defense does not have to opportunity to use it for its needs.”

The next day, the State Attorney's Office announced that it intended to withdraw the indictment against Braude, given that “the price paid by the public in revealing the material prevails over the public interest” in conducting the trial. Withdrawal of the indictment will enable a violent and dangerous person, who was documented committing an offense, to avoid punishment and continue to endanger human lives. If the state refuses to disclose the evidence, it must find other ways to bring Braude to justice. Withdrawal of the indictment is not a legitimate option.

Justice Rubinstein's commitment to the defendant's rights is welcome. However, the decision is unique, and the State Attorney's Office may indeed not have expected it would be required to disclose the evidence. Routinely, privileged material is submitted to the court in criminal proceedings against Palestinian defendants, and requests by their attorneys to disclose it are regularly denied. In balancing between security considerations and the right to due process, the balance always falls in favor of the former.

Privileged evidence also forms the basis of a long line of administrative decisions affecting other rights of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In May 2009, 449 Palestinians were being administratively detained in Israeli jails. Administrative detention is based on an order issued by the OC Central Command, and the detainees are not informed of the accusations or evidence against them. At no stage are they given the opportunity to refute the evidence, not even upon appeal to the Supreme Court.

Privileged evidence also forms the basis of decisions affecting the daily lives of Palestinians, such as rejection of an application to leave the region to study abroad, prohibition of a Jordanian woman to live with her Palestinian husband in the West Bank, or prevention of a detainee from meeting with his attorney for a prolonged period of time. When victims of such decisions petition the Supreme Court, they are not provided the evidence that formed the basis of the decision, and in the vast majority of cases, the petitions are denied after the justices examine the evidence in camera.

When read outside this context, Justice Rubinstein's decision is a wonderful example of respect for defendant's rights. It is to be hoped that this decision marks a change in treatment of privileged material as a basis for denying human rights.

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The Elimination Project: Israel’s Systematic Dismantling of Palestinian Collective Life in the West Bank

Open-Fire Policy

New B’Tselem report: Israel is carrying out an elimination project in the West Bank

B’Tselem’s most comprehensive report to date on Israeli policy in the West Bank finds that Israel is using five mutually reinforcing mechanisms to dismantle Palestinian collective existence there and forcibly reorganize the territory to establish a permanent, contiguous Jewish-Israeli presence and sovereignty.Since late 2022, and especially since October 2023, Israeli policy in the West Bank has entered a new phase. Israel has sharply escalated longstanding policies of control, violence and dispossession, implementing them more openly, more violently and at a faster pace. These measures are also becoming increasingly institutionalized in government policy and practice.With this process intensifying by the day, B’Tselem is publishing The Elimination Project, a 200-page report based on an analysis of approximately 2,000 testimonies from Palestinians in the West Bank, additional field research and decades of documentation. The report traces the acceleration and expansion in recent years of longstanding Israeli policies and practices.“What Palestinians are living through in the West Bank is not a series of separate incidents. It is a single political project that reaches into every part of life,” said B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak. “Communities are being expelled, the economy is being pushed toward collapse, and millions are living in constant fear of Israeli military or settler violence. These mechanisms work together to dismantle Palestinian collective life while entrenching a permanent system of Jewish supremacy across the West Bank. The world is watching and still failing to respond with anything close to the urgency this demands.”How the Elimination Project worksThe report identifies five interconnected mechanisms through which Israel is advancing this project across the West Bank:Violence and intimidation: Israel is using military forces and armed settler militias to impose violence, fear and coercion. From 7 October 2023 through 31 August 2026, Israel killed 1,107 Palestinians in the West Bank, including 245 children.Ethnic cleansing and territorial takeover: Israel is using military operations, demolitions and state-backed settler farms and outposts to drive Palestinians from their land and expand Jewish presence there. To date, 75 Palestinian communities have been forcibly displaced; settler farms and outposts have taken control of 1.07 million dunams of land (18% of the West Bank); and about 33,000 Palestinians have been displaced from refugee camps in the northern West Bank.Movement restrictions: Israel is fragmenting Palestinian space through checkpoints, gates and roadblocks. By the end of 2025, OCHA documented 925 movement obstacles throughout the West Bank.Economic strangulation: Israel is using its control over employment, Palestinian revenues, finance and infrastructure to deepen economic crisis and dependence. Unemployment rose from 13.1% in 2022 to over 31% in 2024, amid mass permit revocations and intensified withholding of revenues.Social and political destruction: Israel criminalizes political organizing, raids and shuts down civil society offices, suppresses protests and arrests activists, students and journalists. Since October 2023, Israel has arrested at least 60 Palestinian journalists from the West Bank.The political blueprint: The report identifies Bezalel Smotrich’s 2017 Decisive Plan as a key document for understanding the current escalation. Its strategy of “victory through settlement” seeks to make Jewish sovereignty irreversible through settlement expansion, land takeover and Palestinian displacement, while leaving Palestinians three options: submit to Jewish supremacy, leave, or face military repression. Though the plan was never formally adopted as government policy, Smotrich now holds broad powers over planning, land and enforcement in the West Bank, and core elements of its logic are increasingly reflected in state policy and practice.Decades in the making: The Elimination Project long predates the 2017 plan and the current Israeli government. B’Tselem situates the current Israeli assault on Palestinian life within a long-term settler-colonial project operating through Israel’s apartheid regime. In the Gaza Strip, this logic has reached its most extreme form in the genocide Israel is committing; in the West Bank, the current government has accelerated the project and made its mechanisms more overt.International responsibility: B’Tselem calls on governments and international institutions to stop treating Israel’s violations as isolated incidents, stop enabling Israel’s crimes, protect Palestinians and act to end Israel’s apartheid regime and military rule. A just future requires a political order based on freedom, justice, equality and democracy for all who live on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, with full realization of individual and collective rights and equal political participation.B’Tselem Executive Director Yuli Novak said: “Palestinians are being left exposed to escalating violence while Israel advances its project of elimination in the West Bank. Governments cannot condemn these crimes while granting Israel the impunity to continue. Together with international institutions, they must use every means available under international law to stop Israel’s crimes and halt the machinery of violence and destruction that is tearing Palestinian life apart.”The full report, executive summary, maps, and graphs are available at the following link: https://www.btselem.org/elimination/?lang=en

14 September 2026

The Elimination Project: Israel’s Systematic Dismantling of Palestinian Life in the West Bank

Open-Fire Policy

The Elimination Project

Since the current Israeli government took office at the end of 2022, and even more so since October 2023, Israel has dramatically escalated its assault on all aspects of Palestinian life in the West Bank. At any moment, Palestinians may be exposed to violence by soldiers or armed settler militias, arrested and imprisoned, subjected to abuse and humiliation, and sometimes even killed.The Elimination Project draws on more than 2,000 testimonies B’Tselem collected from Palestinians since October 2023 and over three decades of documenting the Israeli apartheid regime’s human rights abuses in the West Bank. The report looks at the current reality not as a collection of isolated incidents or specific harms, but as part of a comprehensive mechanism of elimination that works to dismantle the conditions for continued Palestinian existence in the West Bank, while deepening Jewish control and supremacy in an irreversible manner. An examination of the current reality in the West Bank reveals that the project of elimination is now being implemented more openly, directly and violently than before, and increasingly relies on cooperation between official state authorities and settler militias operating in the West Bank with state backing and support.

14 September 2026

Settlers entering Jalud. Still from security camera footage, courtesy of the residents

Settler Violence = State Violence

Qusrah, Talfit and Jalud, Nablus District: Residents of three villages subjected to extreme settler violence since a new outpost was established between them

On 21 January 2026, settlers established the outpost of Tel Talpiyot at the top of a hill known as Jabal 'Ein 'Ena on Talfit village land. The spot, which lies deep within Area B in the midst of Palestinian villages, is far from Area C and has had no previous settler presence.While establishing the outpost, the settlers took over an unfinished house belonging to a Talfit resident and prevented its continued construction. Since then, the villages of Talfit, Qusrah and Jalud have been suffering from severe violence at their hands. In the month after the outpost was established, B’Tselem documented 10 serious attacks against residents, as well as a brutal assault on human rights activists who were accompanying a family driven out of their home by the violence. The assailants used stones and clubs, set homes on fire, and vandalized and torched vehicles. [block:settlers_blog_map_block nid=217668 updates=217835,217836,217837,217838,217841,217842,217812,217849 arrows hide_nid]Click on the icons on the map for details of some of the attacks between January and March 2026. In some cases, they were filmed arriving on an ATV similar or identical to those distributed by the ministries of finance and settlement, on the initiative of Ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Orit Strock.On 14 March 2026, settlers who attacked homes on the western outskirts of Qusrah killed Amir ‘Odeh, 28, when he advanced with his father and several other residents toward them after they had gone a short way in the direction the outpost. Knowing this was the second attack on area homes that day, the residents feared the settlers would return. After a brief exchange of stones at a distance of about 100 meters, one of the settlers opened fire at the residents, shooting ‘Odeh in the chest and wounding two others in the leg. When ‘Odeh’s father tried to help him, the settlers attacked father and son with blows, beating them with club and stabbing them until the father lost consciousness. Only after the settlers went further away toward the outpost were the residents able to take the two men to the hospital, where ‘Odeh was pronounced dead.

27 May 2026