Settler Violence Against Palestinians Rises

Israeli troops and border police arrived in Khirbet a-Taban in the Masafer Yatta area of the South Hebron Hills with guns and diggers, demolishing every Palestinian home and other structure there, according to B’Tselem.

The Israel-based human rights organisation said the community received no warning and could not rescue its property. Twelve families lived there, totaling 70 people, including 28 children. Their cinder-block shelters had sheet-metal roofs, and their livelihoods depended on 600 livestock.

B’Tselem also recorded 17 incidents of sheep theft from Palestinians during the first five months of 2026. Sheep theft had occurred in previous years, the organisation said, but some recent incidents appeared more organised. In eight cases, soldiers guarded settlers while they stole the sheep.

The community’s land forms part of an area of about 30,000 dunams, or 3,000 hectares, that the Israeli military declared a restricted military zone in the early 1980s.