They're Getting Away with Everything

They're Getting Away With Everything

Ngofeen Mputubwele: [00:00:00] This is Rights and Wrongs from Human Rights Watch. I'm Ngofeen Mputubwele. This week, we are spending time in the West Bank. We're gonna hear from two Palestinians whose lives Israeli settlers have upended. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: My name is Waheed Abu Naeem. I'm, uh, an English teacher at Al-Maghayer Village since 16 years at the school village.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Waheed's village, which is just north of Jerusalem, is a little northeast of the city of Ramallah. I was talking to Waheed to hear what happened at his school on April 21st, 2026. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: I was teaching the sixth grade, and two little students rushed to me telling me that there are some settlers behind the wall of the school.

Uh, when I went to that wall behind school, [00:01:00] I saw them. They were just 10 meters behind that wall. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: There were two settlers with four military soldiers protecting them. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: What is going on here? Why would there be Israeli soldiers protecting Israeli settlers in a Palestinian village in the West Bank? 

Sarah Sanbar: It's a great question, and one that is unfortunately illustrative of a much more concerning broader pattern.

Um, as the occupying power, the Israeli military has an obligation and a duty to protect the occupied population, so in this case, Palestinians. But in reality, what we're seeing is them acting almost exclusively in service of security for Israeli settlers. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Who are you, and what do you do? 

Sarah Sanbar: My name is Sarah Sanbar, and I'm the acting Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch.

Waheed Abu Naeem: I told them to leave. "You have to leave because [00:02:00] it is school full of children, so no need to come to school to, to make a crime or to shoot someone. No need to be here." I think he couldn't understand me because many of cheaper settlers who make this kind of violence don't understand English. So that's why he told me in, um, in my language, in Arabic, he said, "Ru, Ru," means go away.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: What did the settlers... Like, what were they wearing? 

Waheed Abu Naeem: They were wearing a uniform, uh, an old uniform of soldiers. 

Sarah Sanbar: So this has been another really marked development, the arming, the equipping, um, the giving to uniforms of settlers in the West Bank. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: So I changed to English then. I was speaking to the military soldiers who were behind them because I know all the military soldiers, they understands English.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Let's just back up for a moment. So [00:03:00] Israel's military has occupied the West Bank since 1967. That's when they took control of it from Jordan in the Six-Day War Ever since then, the Israeli military has had what's called effective control, that's a term of art, over the territory. 

Sarah Sanbar: So that can be things like controlling border crossings, who decides who gets to come in and out of that territory, who is administering that territory, whether that's security administration through, you know, the presence of an actual military who's there, or through civil administration.

It's really where one piece of land is being effectively controlled by a power that is not of that land, let's say. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The occupying power is responsible for the wellbeing of the people living in the occupied territory, according to international law. In this case, that's the Palestinians. Meanwhile, in the almost 60 years of military occupation, [00:04:00] Israel has established many Israeli civilian settlements throughout the West Bank.

These Israelis are known as settlers. We're talking about an actual military occupation. 

Sarah Sanbar: Yes. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Not like a vague idea. 

Sarah Sanbar: Yeah. So, yeah. And, you know, when you think about what that means in practice, that looks like men with guns in uniforms in a language that you might not understand. It's a foreign language to you.

It's a very direct, visible, embodied experience for Palestinians. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Then when I spoke to the military soldier, I told them, "Take your settlers and leave our school. There is no cause to be here near the school." 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: When Wahed said there's no cause to be here, Wahed was speaking about the immediate threat the settlers pose to his students.

But here is the larger legal picture. Those settlers shouldn't be in the West Bank according to international humanitarian [00:05:00] law. Because according to international humanitarian law, transferring civilians from an occupying power into an occupied territory is a war crime. 

Sarah Sanbar: In 2024, the International Court of Justice issued an advisory opinion, which found that Israel's occupation was unlawful.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: In 2024, the International Court of Justice made clear that Israel needs to remove all the settlers. That's international law. Wahed has a more immediate problem. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: He came to the front, that soldier, raised his long gun like this towards me. He said, "It's not d- your duty to ask this question. Go back to your school.

Go back to your students, because we know what to do." 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. So they, they don't go back, and then what happens? 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Our school is at a side of a mountain, and there was A high wall [00:06:00] between school and, uh, uh, se- settlers other than the wall which I was talking behind 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Okay, so there are four Israeli soldiers protecting two Israeli settlers.

The settlers are wearing old military uniforms, and like the soldiers, they're also carrying weapons. One of the settlers goes up this big mountain, big hill, like he w- like he went higher so he could have, like, be able to see it all. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Yeah, he saw everything in front of school and in front of classes. He saw everything, and some students were out to collect rubbish between flowers, so they were inside the garden.

When they saw the settler, they were shouting, uh, "Allen, Allen," means settlers are there. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm. Mm. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: All the school were out of their classes. They, I mean, not, not, uh, out of their floors. They were just looking by windows. Uh, everything was out of [00:07:00] control. "Allen, Allen Hajamu," means, uh, settlers are attacking. "Allen Hajamu."

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The Israeli settlers go up to, like, the top of this mountain hill outside the school. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Mm.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: And there are students inside the classrooms, and there are students, some in the courtyard. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Mm-hmm. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The students in the classroom and in the courtyard see what's happening, and like kids do, go up to the windows. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Mm.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Then what Waheed is describing is that the Israeli civilian, the settler, begins shooting. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: He started shooting. And, uh, one of the students has had a bullet on his head here. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: I.E. one of the students who was out in the courtyard, in the garden, gets shot in the head. Waheed is a few feet away. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: His face was, uh, on the ground- 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm

Waheed Abu Naeem: because he lied down on [00:08:00] his face. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Yeah. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: So when I picked him up, lots of shooting was around me because settler was seeing me- 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Yeah ... 

Waheed Abu Naeem: to try to shoot me also. But, uh, th- uh, thanks God that, uh, I wasn't shot. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Yeah. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: When we, uh, picked him up, when I turned his face, I saw lots of blood coming out of his nose and mouth Lots of blood.

I thought that maybe, maybe I can save his life. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Yeah. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: So I went down, rushing towards my car. I put him inside my car, and quickly I went to the medical, uh, center- 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm ... 

Waheed Abu Naeem: the next village. Within five minutes, I was there. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Okay. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Doctors took him from my car and put, uh, laid him down on the bed and tried to push on his, uh, chest to try to, uh, revive [00:09:00] his breath.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: So from the first minute, doctors said that we lost him. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Okay. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Yeah, he couldn't survive. 

Sarah Sanbar: This is obviously a school. He's obviously a child. There is no confusion about the age of this boy. We interviewed other eyewitnesses who said that nobody was armed. There was no real threat to this person's life.

This wasn't an act of self-defense. Um, the best way to describe it is cold-blooded murder of a child at school. Um, you know, the scene before as well I find incredibly striking, where, um, Wahed is talking about how they were outside cleaning up trash. Um, to be in the middle of doing this very simple act to just beautify your community, it's an act of love for your neighborhood, an act of care for your land, and then to have that be interrupted by such violence, um, when you're at a place where you're supposed to be learning, where you're supposed to be protected, I think just really illustrates [00:10:00] the brutality of military occupation and of settler violence.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. A question I wanna ask, like this is reporter me thinking, and I have a feeling that the question is flawed, but I, I wanna ask it because I should ask, is I, what I imagine is somebody listening and saying Yes, this thing happened and it's sad, but why are we focusing on this? 

Sarah Sanbar: Yeah. I mean, this is one example of a daily reality.

Um, we've seen massive rises in settler violence in the West Bank in recent years. This is the most lethal year on record for settler violence. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The rise in violence, says Sarah, is a direct consequence of the Israeli government funding and arming settlers and failing to prosecute them when they commit violent crimes against [00:11:00] Palestinians.

Human Rights Watch has documented numerous settler attacks involving the direct participation of Israeli soldiers. Israeli government officials have described the goal as maximum land, minimum Palestinians. 

Sarah Sanbar: Something that's always really difficult when we're talking about Israel and Palestine is that it's, it's one of these countries where violence has become normalized in the collective imagination, right?

But unfortunately, that's the reality that Palestinians are up against. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: When I was in the medical center, my father called me and told me that, "Your brother is coming to you." I thought that my brother is bringing some injury, ma- injuries with his car because we used to take, uh, people who are injured to the hospital.

We used to do that, me and my brother. So I thought that he's coming with his car. So when he- when the car reached [00:12:00] there, I saw that my brother was lying inside that car. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: And the first one who went out of the car, he said that, "Your brother has died." 

Sarah Sanbar: So from the interviews we did, his brother received a notification that the settler attack was ongoing, that one of the community members had posted on social media, and he left his job at a nearby construction site to try to go and help.

He was approaching up the hill sort of towards where the settler was shooting. The settler saw him approaching and from about a hundred meters away, shot and killed Jihad, Wahed's brother. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: I wanted to know how Waheed was feeling about this, and it turns out he had two responses, a public response and a private one.

Waheed Abu Naeem: I have to, you know, control something. So I show, I have shown that I am strong in front of women. I have shown them that [00:13:00] we believe in our religion, that the person who was trying to save other lives, he will have another good life and they will go to paradise. It is better than our life and we will follow him to that place.

If it is now or next years, we are going to that way only. But God have chosen those people to be shot and get to paradise. So this is what I was telling others to raise their determination against this sadness. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: What were you feeling inside of yourself? 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Uh, I, I have lost, uh, a big thing, really. Half of my life.

This is what I was thinking. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: My life was broken. I mean, my future. [00:14:00] Until now, it is since four months, but until now, I don't enjoy anything. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. 

Waheed Abu Naeem: Nothing, nothing. I just feel when God gives us the freedom, uh, after all this kind of, uh, crimes by this- those criminals, by the, uh, uh, government and settlers used for the government to do all this kind of crimes.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: What, what comes up for you when you hear that? 

Sarah Sanbar: Yeah, it's interesting 'cause I think there's a lot more noticeable pain in his retelling now. Um, when we interviewed him, it was, you know, um, a week, 10 days after the incident. It was still very much raw. And, and I was really struck and impressed by his composure, by his, um- Yeah

nobility was the best word that I could think of to- Mm-hmm ... describe how he was telling us the story. Um, and I think that thing that really came to mind [00:15:00] when he was talking about putting on a strong face for his community is this concept of sumud in Arabic. It's steadfastness. And this is really something which is really a core part of Palestinian identity, this sense of resilience, this sense of holding onto faith that things will get better, this sense of, you know, withstanding the horrors that life throws at you because one day Palestine will be free, and we won't have to be living through these circumstances anymore.

Um, you know, it takes a lot of strength to hide your own pain for the sake of your community, and I have nothing but immense respect for Waheed. But I think it's, yeah, just a reminder that these things really last. Um, and, you know, after the video cameras and the news organizations and the human rights watchers of the world have left, um, he's the one that's still living with that pain and with that loss and, and grappling with [00:16:00] it every day.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The settler who allegedly killed the student and Waheed's brother has faced no charges 

Speaker 4: Hi, my name is Tanya Lokshina, and I'm an associate director in the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch. I used to run our office in Moscow, but after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty-two, the government shut us down, and all of the Moscow-based staff had to flee or face criminal prosecution.

Our team is now spread far and wide, but does this mean that we actually stopped working? Absolutely not. We are working harder than ever before to document and expose the abuses by the Russian government at home and abroad. We do our utmost to support local partners. We have a network of sources on the ground.

We continue to interview [00:17:00] survivors of abuses, and we are doing open-source investigations and digital data analysis. We do this to create a meticulous record of violations so that eventually the perpetrators can be brought to justice. We cannot do this work without your support. Please visit hrw.org/podcast/donate.

Thank you.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: So I wanna move to our second person 

Madees Khoury: My name is Madees Khoury. I live in Taybeh. Um, it's a small town outside of Ramallah in the West Bank in Palestine, and I work for the family. Uh, my family opened the first microbrewery in the Middle East in 1994 called Taybeh, and, um, I manage the business, and I'm also the first and only female brewer in the Middle East, as far as I know.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: [00:18:00] Madis was born in Boston, so she has American and Palestinian citizenship. I wanted a sense of what it's like to operate a small business in the West Bank, especially during this time of intensifying attacks from Israeli settlers. 

Madees Khoury: Since July 2025, settler violence has escalated on our town specifically- 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Hmm

Madees Khoury: and neighboring villages and towns next to us. I'll give you an example. 

Mm-hmm. 

My father and uncle have land in Taybeh. It's in an agricultural area- 

Sarah Sanbar: Mm-hmm ... 

Madees Khoury: and, um, there's a settler outpost above the l- area. 

Sarah Sanbar: Mm-hmm.

Madees Khoury: And in October 2025, he was on the settler, armed with his M16 on his side, with his, uh, tractor plowing my father's land.

Waheed Abu Naeem: Hmm. 

Madees Khoury: Yeah. My brother and I were too scared to go anywhere near the land or to go talk to the settler because, you know, he could shoot us [00:19:00] and kill us and, you know, uh, still continue plowing my father's land or steal the land. So we tried to call the Israeli police. We tried to call the Israeli Civil Administration.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Let me interrupt Madis's story and ask, why in the world would she call the Israeli police? You have to remember what Sarah Sanbar said earlier. 

Sarah Sanbar: As the occupying power, the Israeli military has an obligation and a duty to protect the occupied population, so in this case, Palestinians. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The 1995 Oslo II Accords divided the West Bank into three areas, Zone A, Zone B, Zone C, Area A, Area B, Area C.

Area C is the biggest. About 60% of the West Bank, Area C. 

Sarah Sanbar: And that is under both civil and, um, security control of the Israeli authorities. Area B is under Palestinian Authority civil control and joint Palestinian Authority and Israeli security control. And Area A, which [00:20:00] is the smallest portion of the West Bank and really comprises, like, the built-up urban areas, so, like Ramallah, for instance, Jenin, Nablus, um, that's under full Palestinian Authority civil and security control.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Taybeh is in Zone B and Zone C. Why? Well, because the town itself, like the inhabited area, is Zone B, Area B, but the surrounding farmlands, including Madis's father's land, is Zone C, Area C, under full Israeli control. In practice, Palestinian police handle matters between Palestinians. Israeli police intervene when Israelis are involved.

That's why she called the Israeli police. 

Madees Khoury: Um, no one answered their calls. Um, we eventually called the US Embassy. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Because remember, Mariz has US citizenship. 

Madees Khoury: They then contacted the Israeli military, and I guess the settler got a call, and he went back to his outpost. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm. 

Madees Khoury: The following day, same [00:21:00] settler went back to the property, continuing to plow the land.

I called the Israeli Civil Administration, and they didn't believe me. And I'm like, "He's ri-," I'm, like, on the hilltop away from him, 'cause I'm al- I'm too scared to go anywhere near him. So I'm on the hilltop, and I open a live video, and I'm like, "He's right there. He's plowing my father's land." 

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. 

Madees Khoury: He was like, "Okay, we're gonna send the military."

I, I waited for, like, 20, 30 minutes, and then I guess h- the settler got a phone call, and he stopped plowing, and he went back to his post. 30 minutes later, the Israeli military went to that exact outpost. They knew exactly who it was. They knew exactly where to go, and they went to him. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: The Is- Israeli, um, um, police?

Madees Khoury: Israeli police, yes. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because Palestinian police have no authority, have no power, have no control. They're not even allowed to go anywhere n- anywhere without the approval of the Israeli, uh, Civil Administration. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Mm-hmm. 

Madees Khoury: But anyways, the Israeli [00:22:00] police, the Israeli military walked with the settlers onto the land.

They trespassed. They opened the door, the building, uh, the door building. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: This was a barn-like building the family owned in town that had some animals inside. 

Madees Khoury: They took the horse and the baby horse, and they walked out from the town And I was videoing and taking sh- pictures. And ev- I tried to approach to talk to the police and tell them, explain to them what was going on, and the Israeli, um, military would, um, aim their rifles in m- at my face to push me back not to go anywhere near, near them.

So we are, we are being terrorized on a daily basis. 

Sarah Sanbar: So unfortunately, Madis, uh, had the right instinct to be afraid to approach the settler as he was plowing his land. This is a really common technique that we've seen that's been a precursor to a lot of settler, um, violence in the West Bank, has been exactly plowing the land.

Um, you know, we did an interview in Qaryut, um, village, uh, that sadly [00:23:00] ultimately resulted in the death of two brothers, the killing of two brothers, and it began just that way. Settlers showed up, started plowing their land. They approached to see what was happening, um, and later were, were attacked by a group of around 30 settlers.

It's a provocation technique. 

Madees Khoury: So this is one issue that the settlers have affected our business. Also, we make wine, and we buy our grapes from Palestinian farmers from nearby towns. And since October last year, uh, one of the farmers has been having a really hard time with this one settler that's been harassing him and trespassing and sending his, uh, sheep to eat from the, from the vineyard.

And one night in October, the farmer went to check on his grapes. He found that the settler had chopped the whole vineyard and left one tree. Our farmers are having a hard time reaching their vineyards because either the Israeli military closes the gates and prevents people from moving around, [00:24:00] or there's a checkpoint, and he's held at the checkpoint for hours, or he goes to his land, and he gets attacked by the settlers.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Yeah. 

Madees Khoury: It's a circle. Everyone is affected by the settler violence. And what's going on is that it, this is, these are all criminal acts that, um- That are, they're getting away with everything. 

Sarah Sanbar: Yeah. I think, uh, one thing that she highlights that I think is really important to rest on, um, is exactly this attacks on the livelihoods, the agriculture, the, the things that make life possible.

Um, in our investigations, we found that these attacks are contributing to a coercive environment that essentially leaves Palestinians no choice but to flee. A settler who's cutting down grapevines might not make headlines the same way that killings at a school does, but they're both different forms of violence with the same intended effect, which is to- Yeah

drive Palestinians off of their land. 

Madees Khoury: So we live under occupation. 

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. 

Madees Khoury: [00:25:00] We have no control over anything, uh, in our lives, whether it's our resources, roads, probably the air we breathe is controlled by the Israelis as well. 

Sarah Sanbar: The best way to think about what they're controlling is to think about what it would take for you to go visit Your best friend in the next town over.

In the West Bank, it's not taken for granted that you'd be able to drive from point A to point B without being stopped, without being harassed at a checkpoint, without being just frankly turned around and told to go home 'cause the road was closed. 

Madees Khoury: Many times, many times, um, my nieces would go to Ramallah, and there was a checkpoint, and the soldier would have their, his M16 aiming at the c- at the car, at them in the car.

And, and my niece was, I think this was two years ago, she freaked out. S- too scared to go to school, doesn't wanna go on the road anymore. She wants to stay home. 

Sarah Sanbar: Mm-hmm.

Madees Khoury: And they don't stay after school for extracurricular activities or for birthdays or anything [00:26:00] because they're too scared to stay late.

They have to come back home before it gets dark because they're worried that there's gonna be a checkpoint or if there's gonna be, um, settler attacks or... So they just try to come home as fast as they can. So they miss out on all the fun stuff that kids s- are supposed to, you know, live. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Yeah. 

Madees Khoury: We never get used to this.

We pretend as Palestinians, you know, we've been living under occupation. We g- we've been through the Intifadas. We've been through the, um, security checks, the checkpoints, the humiliation, you know, the curfews, the, the tear gas. We've, we've been through all that. You think that we would get used to it. We, you never get used to this stuff.

It's not normal. 

Ngofeen Mputubwele: What should the world know about settler violence in the West Bank that maybe they didn't hear in The New York Times? You know, I feel like The New York Times has been, like, the latest, like, "Oh, okay, now we know there's settler violence." What should the world know about settler vio- violence and what, um, what does Human Rights Watch, like, what's its [00:27:00] response?

Sarah Sanbar: Yeah. So I think there's something that's come up, uh, constantly in almost every single interview we've done, um, which is the same feeling of essentially the West Bank being almost like a powder keg that's on the brink of explosion. Um, and everyone said the same thing. All it's gonna take is one settler attack where Palestinians defend themselves, defend their lands, their families, that results in the killing of Israeli settlers, and that's gonna be the excuse that the government needs to do to do to us what they did to Gaza after October 7th.

And this is a really real, tangible fear that a lot of people are experiencing right now. And given the way that the Israeli government has just completely erased any line of acceptable conduct in Gaza, we've already seen airstrikes that have happened across the West Bank, the complete razing of refugee camps, and the denied return of, you know, 32,000 Palestinians who were displaced from them in West Bank refugee camps.

It's, it's a real fear, but it's not [00:28:00] an inevitability. There is still time for governments to take concrete action to defuse the situation, to hold Israel accountable for decades of impunity and to actually make changes to prevent that from happening. You know, we've been seeing a lot of movement in recent months, especially of countries who have been moving just from words of condemnation to concrete action.

So, you know, most recently, the UK, France, and Canada announced that they were going to introduce a ban on trade with illegal settlements. This is really a very welcome positive development and frankly a sea change from what we've seen in the past in states' attitudes towards this conflict. But there's much more that needs to be done.

We are constantly calling on governments to suspend arms transfers to Israel, um, to ban trade with settlements, to support proceedings at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court that are attempting to hold Israel accountable for violations of international law that it's committed, and really concrete action that [00:29:00] effectuates the change that we need so that the West Bank doesn't become the next Gaza.

Ngofeen Mputubwele: Israeli elections are scheduled for October 27th, 2026. They've probably already happened by the time you hear this episode. There are hopes for change in Israel if Benjamin Netanyahu loses power. But none of his opponents have said they'll withdraw support for Israeli settlers in the West Bank. You've been listening to Rights and Wrongs from Human Rights Watch.

This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Sophie Soloway is the associate producer. Ife Fatunase and Anthony Gale are the executive producers. I'm Ngofeen Mputubwele. Thanks for listening.