The BBC witnesses the attack on the Israeli settlers against the Palestinian farm in the West Bank

Among the broken remains of the olive trees of Brahim Hamaiel, in the occupied West Bank, we saw the masked men approach.

A dozen settlers, loading with the illegal outpost above his farm and on the other side of the field towards us, moving quickly and carrying large sticks.

A sudden and not caused attack.

Brahim had shown us the trees which, according to him, had been hacked in pieces this week by settlers from the outpost.

His family has cultivated olives here on land near Turmus Aya, for generations, which has made it a target for extremist settlers who think that killing Palestinian trees and livestock will also kill the idea of a Palestinian state, forcing residents like Brahim out of their land.

“Fear is natural,” said Brahim, looking up for the crest where Tarpaulin was beating the watchtower of the settlers in front of a few caravans and fortune houses. “But there is something stronger than the fear that pushes me to stay here – the smell of my ancestors and an attachment dating from hundreds of years – even if I pay the price with my blood.”

While masked men run towards us, we take off on the road and push a safety distance.

In a few minutes, some of the neighbors of Brahim of the surrounding farms and villages meet with catapults and stones to face the attackers.

The vegetation next to the road is burnt down, its smoke signaling the site of the confrontation, while the settlers of a quad bicycle continue a voluntary emergency team trying to reach a farm in the middle of the field.

It is now a familiar routine. The Palestinians living in these villages south of Nablus say that there are attacks and confrontations on their land every week, and that the colonists use this type of tactics to take control of the land, on the ground.

But the speed and spread of this attack are breathtaking.

In just over an hour, dozens of settlers had taken place through the hills. We watched them put out in an isolated building and methodically set fire to vehicles and houses.

The shepherds on the most distant ridge rushed, while the hill behind them broke into flames, smoke escaping from several places.

Until then, the Palestinians arriving from the whole region to help their neighbors find the main access road blocked by the Israeli army, while destruction was continuing.

A Palestinian would have been beaten by settlers, and the army told us later that the two sides had launched on rocks and that the Palestinians had burned tires. He said four Israeli civilians had received medical treatments on the scene.

Among the crowd that waits near the army roadblock, we found Rifa said Hamail, her frantic gestures giving way to a warm smile and kissing us when we talked to him.

Rifa told us that her husband was trapped on their farm near Brahim’s olive farm and surrounded by settlers, but that the army would not let her pass.

“Every two days, the settlers do this-they attack us, reduce olive trees and burn the farms,” she said. “It is not a life. No one can stop them. We have nothing to resist them. They have weapons, we have nothing.”

We learned later that the colonists had burned part of their property, and that Rifa’s husband had been left with cuts on his face and leg, after being struck with rocks.

The Israeli organization Peace Now, who monitors the propagation of the colonies in the West Bank, says that the number of outposts – and aggression of the colonists – has multiplied since the attacks of Hamas against Israel in October 2023, and the Gaza War that followed.

Since the beginning of last year, he said, some 100 outposts have appeared through the West Bank. He also found that hundreds of square kilometers of land had been taken up by settlers in recent years using the same violent intimidation scheme – encouraged, he says, by the support of the government and the lack of application of the law appropriate by Israel.

Last week, the Minister of Finance of Israel, Bezalel Smotrich, announced the creation of thousands of new housing units in a large colony block of the West Bank further south, saying that it “would bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

Between August 5 and 11, the United Nations humanitarian affairs office documented at least 27 settlers against the Palestinians who have made losses, material damage or both, in two dozen different communities. These attacks, she said, led to the displacement of 18 households.

We were unable to talk to any of the settlers involved in the attack we have witnessed. The council of local settlers told us that there were elements on both sides in search of provocation, which he strongly condemned.

Brahim told us that he had filed two separate complaints concerning attacks against his land, but few Palestinians here have a lot of confidence in the Israeli justice or security forces, affirming several times that they only protect the colonists.

One of the volunteer emergency crews that came to help during the clashes on Saturday told me that the Israeli army had prevented them from reaching the premises.

“We were trying to save young men when the army came, horny and telling us to move away from here,” said Yahya al-Khatib.

“We were volunteers carrying our vests. We are not there to attack or harm the settlers. We want to extinguish the fires and treat wounded people. But they (the army) stop us and support us.”

The tensions between local residents and the settlers are complicated by the increasingly heavy control of Israeli forces through the West Bank, which has experienced the evacuation and generalized demolition of the refugee camps across the north of the West Bank.

From January to June this year, the UN noted that 149 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers in occupied West Bank. Nine Israelis were killed by the Palestinians.

A few hours after the clashes that broke out on Brahim farm on Saturday, another Palestinian victim was added to this dark count.

Hamdan Abu-Elaya, eighteen, was shot by Israeli troops in the village of Al-Mughayyir, a few kilometers from the Brahim field.

His mother told us that he went to see the fires lit by nearby settlers. “I raised it for 18 years and he left in a minute,” she said.

We asked the Israeli army what had happened. He said that “the terrorists” had thrown Molotov rocks and cocktails into the village troops, and that the soldiers “replied by fire to eliminate the threat”.

Hundreds piled up in Hamdan’s house for his funeral on Sunday, while her body was transported to make her mother say goodbye.

His father, Ameen Abu Elaya, raging to his friends and family, said that he had refused to show the Israelis his tears.

“They thought that if they killed our son, we were leaving,” he said. “I will not cry and cry and say” why did he leave? “I’m not sad that he passed.

In the local mosque, there was a welcome from a hero for Hamdan’s body because he was transported for funeral prayer – large Palestinian flags suspended next to those of Fatah and Hamas of posts and windows; Crowds line the way to beer.

In the language of this conflict, each birth and each burial reinforces links with the earth.

Additional reports by Morgan Gisholt Minard