Residents of West Bank town say deadly settler attack was ‘most vicious’ yet

Jit, West Bank (CNN) — When Moawya Ali saw a wave of Israeli settlers storm towards his house in the West Bank town of Jit, he grabbed his five children and rushed to his car, where he dropped them off at a nearby house for safety.

When he returned to the house, Ali said, he saw some 30 settlers – armed, masked and dressed in black – jumping over the fence, breaking windows and throwing Molotov cocktails inside the house.

CNN visited Ali’s house, where the majority of the ground floor was burnt down. Little was left of the chairs and sofas, which were completely hollowed from the flames and black with soot. A smell of smoke filled the air.

“We are (Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir) Ben Gvir’s gang, we are here to kill you, here to kill Arabs,” the settlers shouted in both Arabic and Hebrew, according to Ali.

“They told us to leave, to go to Sinai, to Jordan, to Syria,” Ali told CNN, recounting Thursday’s attack. “(They said) we will come back for you and kill you.”

CNN has reached out to Ben Gvir’s office for comment.

Ali’s home is one of several houses and cars damaged by what residents of Jit say was an assault by dozens of settlers on Thursday night, which drew scathing condemnation from top Israeli officials.

The armed settlers stormed into the village from three different fronts at around 7:00 PM local time, residents told CNN. They fired bullets, tear gas and set homes and cars on fire, they said.

Another resident, Mohamed Arman, was injured as he tried to confront the settlers, one of whom threw a rock at his face, he told CNN, cutting his lips open. A bandage covered the corner of his swollen mouth. The attackers also torched his car, he said.

CCTV footage shared with CNN shows Arman confronting at least five settlers. In the footage, the settlers appear to be uniformly dressed in black, chasing Arman as he tries to drive them away.

“They were prepared with weapons,” Arman said, adding that they had silencer firearms with live ammunition, knives and M16 rifles. “They came to commit a crime in the town,” he said.

The attack has been condemned by top officials across Israel’s government, with a statement issued hours later by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office warning that “those responsible for any offense will be apprehended and tried.”

‘Netanyahu is but a toy’

One resident, Rashid Sedda, was killed in Thursday’s attack. According to the Palestinian Authority’s ministry of health, the 23-year-old died after an “injury to the chest by settlers’ bullets.”

Hundreds gathered for his burial on Friday, where residents marched down the narrow streets of the town carrying Sedda’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag.

Mourners blamed far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Ben Gvir for the attack, saying they have been instigating settler violence, and especially after October 7.

“Netanyahu is but a toy in their hands,” said the preacher speaking at Sedda’s burial.

In May, Smotrich said that Israel should approve 10,000 settlements in the West Bank, establish a new settlement for every country that recognizes a state of Palestine, and cancel travel permits for Palestinian Authority officials. In June, the minister said the way to prevent a Palestinian state that would endanger the state of Israel is to develop Jewish settlements.

Netanyahu has long struggled to appease the far-right side of his coalition, and is currently under pressure to delay a ceasefire deal and press on with the war in Gaza, which today shows few signs of ending.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has recorded at least 1,143 settler attacks against Palestinians from October 7 to August 5 alone. Of those, at least 114 attacks “led to Palestinian fatalities and injuries,” according to OCHA.

After Thursday’s attack, some settler leaders were keen to distance themselves from the attackers. Smotrich, who lives in the Kedumim settlement just 10 minutes away, called attackers “criminals” who “are in no way related to the settlements and the settlers.”

In a statement, Ben Gvir suggested that the riot would not have happened if the Israeli military were allowed to shoot stone-throwers in the West Bank. Ben Gvir said he “told the [IDF] Chief of the General Staff this evening that the fact that we don’t let soldiers shoot any terrorist who throws stones is leading to events of the type that occurred tonight.”

“At the same time, it is unequivocally forbidden to take the law into one’s own hands,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have also condemned the attack, saying in a statement that Israeli security forces were dispatched to Jit “minutes after receiving the report of this incident” and “used riot dispersal means, fired shots into the air, and removed the Israeli civilians from the town.”

An Israeli civilian involved in the riot has been apprehended for questioning, and a joint investigation by Israeli security forces is looking into the death of the Palestinian resident, it also said.

The world ‘does nothing’

Statements by Israeli officials did little to cool residents’ anger, however.

Murad Eshtewi, spokesman for Fatah in the Qalqilya Province, where the town of Jit is located, said that attacks by settlers are always given a greenlight by settler leaders. Fatah is the leading party in the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs the West Bank.

“We cannot believe in the contradiction Netanyahu is now living. It sends a message to settlers that they can launch their attacks on the people of the town Jit,” he told CNN, adding that this also shows that Netanyahu is not serious about stopping the war.

While the prime minister is enjoying the support of his far-right ministers, Eshtewi said, blood is being spilled in Gaza and the West Bank.

Residents of Jit said that attacks by settlers have been rampant since Netanyahu’s new government and more so after October 7, but that Thursday’s attack was unprecedented.

They fear it may not be the last.

“Yesterday’s event was not the first and will not be the last,” Jamal Yamin, a resident of Jit and member of the municipally committee, told CNN. “But it was the most vicious.”

Yamin said that it is up to the international community to stop the violence, as the Palestinian people have no means of confronting these attacks.

“The world sees and hears what happens, and does nothing,” he said.

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