Violence On Display: Settlers Celebrate Assaults On WhatsApp Channel

By Staff, Agencies

A public WhatsApp channel operated by "Israeli" settlers has openly celebrated a surge in violent attacks targeting Palestinians and their property across the occupied West Bank.

The group, known as "Anshei Shlomeinu", meaning “Our People” in Hebrew, shared a post on Thursday boasting of assaults carried out throughout September/October [Hebrew month of Tishrei, which ended on October 22].

The message detailed the number of Palestinian villages attacked, tallying incidents of homes and vehicles set ablaze and listing the number of “Arabs” injured.

According to the channel, settlers burned 33 Palestinian vehicles, torched 12 homes, and injured 25 Palestinians during the period. The post further stressed that “thousands of olive trees were uprooted,” the tires of dozens of cars punctured, and hundreds of windshields smashed. It also boasted that “dozens of fields and orchards were set on fire.”

Among the targeted villages were “Surif”, located south of the "Gush Etzion" settlement bloc near al-Quds, attacked six times; al-Mughayyir, north of Ramallah, attacked five times; and “Turmus Ayya”, near the “Shilo” settlement, also attacked five times.

The settlers’ post included a montage of videos documenting these attacks, from vandalized property to Palestinians assaulted during the olive harvest. One particularly harrowing clip showed a masked settler bludgeoning a 52-year-old Palestinian woman in “Turmus Ayya” as she picked olives last week.

The brazenness of these visuals underscored how settler violence, once confined to extremist circles, is increasingly being publicized and normalized in open digital spaces.

In recent weeks, the "Anshei Shlomeinu" name has also appeared at several attack sites. In two brutal attacks over the past five weeks, arson and vandalism against Palestinian property were accompanied by graffiti attributing the assaults to the group.

While "Anshei Shlomeinu’s" administrators rarely claim responsibility outright, their posts frequently track and amplify reports of settler violence. The group regularly shares video evidence of incidents, captioning them in ways that glorify the perpetrators.

The "Israeli" so-called human rights organization Yesh Din, which monitors settler violence and first highlighted “Anshei Shlomeinu’s” activities, condemned both the group and "Israeli" occupation police for failing to curb settler attacks.

“The policies of the Ben Gvir police are expressed not just in the increase in number and severity of violent incidents and injury to Palestinians by settlers, but also by the fact that they are not afraid to take pride in these crimes in public,” the organization said.

Yesh Din warned that this growing impunity has emboldened settlers, most notably extremists. “The violent settlers know that they will not be put on trial, and their sense of impunity exposes defenseless Palestinians to further terrorist violence,” it stressed.