In the West Bank, Israeli settlers take over Palestinian’s dream home
By Ali Sawafta
JALUD, West Bank, July 3 (Reuters) – Palestinian Mohammed Salameh was building a house for his family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, where his recently engaged son was expected to begin married life. Instead, a group of Israeli settlers seized the property before construction was completed.
Video taken earlier in the week and verified by Reuters showed at least six settlers moving around on the roof of a two-storey house at the bottom of a nearby hill.
Salameh said calls to the Israeli army and police were of no use. Now he fears his home, which, like many others in the Palestinian territories, is surrounded by Israeli settlements and smaller outposts, may be lost forever. He said other homes in the area could suffer the same fate.
“If there is law and order then only God knows if they will leave,” Salameh said. “If they manage to get one, the rest will follow.”
Reuters could not reach the settlers for comment. One of them was seen walking on the roof of the house on Thursday.
The Israeli army said it received a report about the house earlier this week and that “soldiers came to the area and quickly took action to disperse the meeting.” There was no comment on the continued presence of settlers in the house.
The military has said that law enforcement regarding the actions of Israeli settlers in the West Bank is the responsibility of the Israeli police, but the police did not respond to a request for comment.
SETTLEMENTS AND SETTLER ATTACKS ARE EXPANDING DURING NETANYAHU’S GOVERNMENT
Settler takeover of Palestinian land is a long-standing feature of life in the West Bank, where about 500,000 Israelis live among about 3 million Palestinians.
For years, Palestinians have reported damage to farmland, vandalism and attacks linked to settlement expansion. A UN study last month reported that Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian villages and farmland have increased by 130 percent since 2023.
Residents of Salameh’s village, Jalud, say this week’s incident marks another troubling tension as settlers have taken over a house still under construction.
“They moved within 100 meters of the last house currently under construction belonging to a resident in Jalud,” said village council chairman Raed al-Haj Mohammad.
Jalud said he faced five major attacks from settlers, including burning houses, damaging vehicles and uprooting trees.
Most countries and the United Nations consider Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, citing the Fourth Geneva Convention’s prohibition on the transfer of civilian populations to occupied territories.
Israel rejects this view, saying the West Bank is a disputed territory where there has been a Jewish presence for thousands of years. Palestinians consider the West Bank, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, as part of the Palestinian state.
Settlement building and settler violence have long been among the biggest obstacles to peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians. Even Israel’s staunchest allies, including the United States, have condemned the settlers’ actions.
However, settlement expansion accelerated under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, which relied on hard-line pro-solution parties to maintain its parliamentary majority.
For Salameh, this dispute is deeply personal. The construction of the house stopped after the outbreak of the Gaza war in 2023, because his son could not find a job and the family’s financial situation was in trouble.
“The neighbor nearby has built a two-storey house, they will probably buy that too. If we lose this house, they will lose theirs too,” he said.
(Additional reporting by Rami Ayyub; Writing by Yasmine Ghania; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ros Russell)
