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The new settlers of Homesh believe they are retaking land God granted the Jews in biblical times and do not much care what their own government thinks. They are hostile to <\/span>journalists and have no interest in the beliefs or property deeds of the Palestinians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The Palestinians who live in the villages under Homesh and who own most of its land say the settlers are aggressive and violent. Sometimes armed with rifles, the settlers intermittently engage in housebreaking, sheep stealing and vandalism. They chop down olive trees, roll flaming tires down the hills to burn crops and even send boars to dig up Palestinian seedlings and fruit trees, the locals say.<\/p>\n
Salah Qararia, 54, showed visitors the broken windows and doors of his house, on his own land perhaps 200 yards down the hill from Homesh. Settlers armed with pistols have come often, shouting racist insults and throwing stones, and have uprooted some of his 600 fruit trees, he said. So he has sent his wife and seven children away and stays in the house to guard it, and has bought some dogs to try to keep the boars away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cThey try to scare us,\u201d Mr. Qararia said. \u201cThey want to try to take the house and the land.\u201d<\/p>\n
Does he complain to the army or to the Palestinian Authority, which exercises civil control over parts of the West Bank? He laughed. \u201cThe P.A. is powerless here,\u201d he said. As for the army, \u201cyou cannot speak to them, you cannot reach them. And they would take their side for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Mr. Qararia and his neighbors have a WhatsApp group to warn one another if the settlers approach, he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s very dangerous to come and help.\u201d The settlers have weapons, he said. \u201cWe do not.\u201d<\/p>\n
He did say that sometimes he had seen the soldiers trying to restrain the settlers, who push back at them. \u201cThey don\u2019t listen to the soldiers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Most of them came after Mr. Netanyahu\u2019s 2022 re-election, he said. They have been supported by far-right ministers like Mr. Smotrich, who has long wanted to rebuild Homesh, and Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe settlers are seeking the delegitimization of the 2005 withdrawal from Gaza,\u201d said Amnon Abramovich, an Israeli commentator for Channel 12. \u201cWhy disband the four in the West Bank?\u201d It was a signal by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon \u201cthat in the years to come he would evacuate many more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Like Yitzhak Rabin, Mr. Sharon wanted to stay in the West Bank but bring outlying settlers into three defensible settlement blocs, removing the outposts that were overextending the resources of the army, Mr. Abramovich said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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But Mr. Sharon had a stroke soon afterward, and under successive governments, settlement activity accelerated.<\/p>\n
Jihad Moussa, 46, who sells building materials, is constructing a house on his land on the hill near Homesh. But some eight months ago, 30 settlers with butcher knives and wire cutters, some with M16 rifles, took all the aluminum windows and doors, stole the water pumps, \u201cand what they couldn\u2019t take, they broke, including the marble on my new staircase,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He showed a video that he said was taken from his shop\u2019s security camera and showed settlers smashing the windows of a car and truck. He said he went to the Israeli police with the video, which The New York Times could not verify, but the police never called back.<\/p>\n
He now lives in town in an older house with water damage, afraid to continue building his new home. \u201cI\u2019m scared to live there,\u201d he said, fearing for his wife and children.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Asked to comment on Homesh and the allegations of settler violence, the Israeli military said in a statement that officers of the army and the police, when they \u201cencounter incidents of violation of the law by Israelis, especially violent incidents or incidents directed at Palestinians and their property, are required to act to stop the violation and if necessary to detain or arrest the suspects until police arrive at the scene.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAny claim\u201d that the military \u201csupports and permits settler violence is false,\u201d the statement continued. Palestinians may also file a complaint with the Israeli police, the statement said.<\/p>\n
Ghassan Qararia, the head of Al Fandaqumiya village council, said that he gave landowners a tax discount \u201cto be steadfast on the land and build on it, but they are too scared.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Abdel Fatah Abu Ali, the mayor of nearby Silat Ad-Dhahr, also situated under Homesh, said that since Oct. 7, Israeli military checkpoints to protect the settlers had badly damaged commerce and travel along Route 60.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cI can\u2019t even go to Nablus or Ramallah now,\u201d the mayor said. \u201cI can\u2019t go to Al Aqsa to pray,\u201d citing the Jerusalem mosque, one of Islam\u2019s holiest places. He laughed bitterly. \u201cDid the settlers close the road? No, it was the army that protects them. There is no difference between them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Abu Ali, 65, lived for a time in the United States. \u201cI had the taste of freedom there,\u201d he said. \u201cHere now it is the taste of hell.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Palestinian Authority was \u201cuseless,\u201d he said. \u201cMy government is corrupt. They are the Harvard University of corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n
The issue of Homesh is increasingly sensitive, even among the settlers, who feel they get hostile media coverage.<\/p>\n
Some members of the Homesh settlement had agreed to talk to me, but when Esther Allouch, the Shomron Council spokeswoman, heard of my plans to visit, she said she would cooperate only if I provided quotations for approval and promised not to include any Palestinians in my report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n