West Bank & Jerusalem
Settlers burn cars and attack homes in al-Samu on consecutive nights
West Bank & JerusalemGraphic: Times of Palestine
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Israeli settlers attacked homes and burned vehicles in Wadi Jheish, on the eastern edge of the town of al-Samu south of Hebron, on the nights of 4 and 5 October, the Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. They left racist slogans on the walls both times.
On Sunday 4 October, a group of settlers entered the property of Mahmoud Musa al-Rawashdeh in Wadi Jheish, set his car on fire, spray-painted slogans on his walls and damaged his belongings, Wafa reported.
A second night, two towns#
They came back on the evening of Monday 5 October. Osama Mukhamara, an anti-settlement activist in the southern Hebron hills, told Wafa that settlers attacked several homes in Wadi Jheish and in Wadi al-Rakhim, south of the neighbouring town of Yatta, smashing property and setting vehicles alight.
The fires took a truck belonging to Mohammad Ibrahim al-Khalayleh, two vehicles belonging to Issa Mohammad al-Dughameen and a car belonging to Munther al-Khalayleh, Mukhamara said. Settlers also set straw ablaze around the home of Mahmoud al-Dughameen and wrecked his property, and lit a fire at the door of a fourth family's home and broke its windows.
On the same day, settlers in Khillet al-Hummus in Masafer Yatta drove their cattle and sheep up to Palestinian homes and onto private farmland, damaging crops and keeping residents indoors, Palestinian media reported.
Times of Palestine found no public statement from the Israeli army on the al-Samu attacks in the days after the attacks.
A town on the edge of the hills#
Al-Samu sits on the southern rim of the Hebron hills, where the West Bank's last Palestinian towns meet the open grazing land of Masafer Yatta and the settlements and outposts built across it. It is a town with a long memory of raids: in November 1966, under Jordanian rule, an Israeli army force stormed it and blew up dozens of homes.
Its outlying hamlets have been hit repeatedly this year. In February, settlers attacked homes in Kharrabah, a hamlet southeast of al-Samu, and wounded residents, the Palestinian Information Center reported. During the barley harvest at the start of July, settlers drove flocks onto farmland in al-Samu, kept its owner from working it and took grain, according to the Israeli monitoring group MachsomWatch.
The southern hills under pressure#
The attacks on al-Samu land in an area where OCHA has documented a sustained escalation of settler violence through 2026. Israeli forces carried out two waves of demolitions in three Masafer Yatta communities between 2 and 8 September, destroying 49 structures and displacing 57 people, 27 of them children, the UN humanitarian office OCHA reported on 11 September.
About 1,200 Palestinians live in thirteen communities inside the area Israel has declared Firing Zone 918, OCHA said.
57 people displaced, 27 of them children
OCHA, on the Masafer Yatta demolitions of 2-8 September 2026
Earlier in the summer, about thirty armed settlers attacked homes in Umm al-Khair, also in Masafer Yatta, after the army closed the village's main entrance, wounding six residents, Wafa reported.
UN officials warned in July that settler violence across the occupied West Bank had reached an all-time high, UN News reported. In al-Samu, the attacks came after dark on two nights running, and the families of Wadi Jheish woke on 5 October and again on 6 October to count what had burned.
