Palestinian Resistance to racist settlers: ‘Leave stolen land!’

On July 3, a 20-year-old Palestinian Abdelwahab Khalayleh, who is from Samu’ in Al-Khalil, located in the occupied West Bank, carried out a stabbing attack. Called “Operation Sacred Revenge,” this act in Tel Aviv resulted in the wounding of 10 Zionist settlers. Khalayleh was martyred following his heroic efforts.

This operation was not an isolated incident but part of a much larger ongoing and justified response against the fascist settlers, who are an armed extra-legal terrorist extension of the occupation force and the apartheid, settler-colonial state of Israel.

Haaretz, a left-center Israeli publication, reported that Palestinian farmers located in Turmus Ayya, a town north of the West Bank city of Ramallah, accused settlers of setting fire to lands used for farming and olive groves. Settlers threw stones at homes in the West Bank village of Madama and set fire to an olive grove, according to a Yesh Din investigation.

The Popular Resistance Committees in Palestine reported on July 4: “The decision of the zionist government to approve the construction of approximately 5,300 new homes in settlements in the occupied West Bank is a practical application to annex the West Bank to the zionist entity, Judaize it and empty it of its original inhabitants and displace them.

“The decision of the extremist zionist government to build new homes in the settlements is part of the genocide and ethnic cleansing being carried out by the zionist gangs supported by the American administration across the land of Palestine.” (Resistance News Network)

Ever since the Nakba in 1948, Palestinians have been driven off their ancestral lands by heinous tactics carried out by these armed vigilantes, with massacres, beatings and arson. In many instances, Palestinians are forced out of their homes at gunpoint to make room for these fascist settlers, many of whom originate from the U.S. and other parts of the Global North. Palestinian lands have been illegally deemed “state lands” and put up for sale at cheap prices for settlers to acquire.

October 7 changed everything

The Al-Aqsa Flood initiated by Hamas on October 7 has brought about a new stark reality for these settlers despite the ongoing horrific genocide of the Palestinian people that has spread from Gaza to the West Bank.

Due to the air strikes carried out by the Lebanon-based Hezbollah, an integral part of the Axis of Resistance, settlers throughout the West Bank are being rightfully targeted, forcing thousands of them to flee Israel on a daily basis.

The Israeli regime has reported that at least 260,000 settlers have been “displaced” in northern occupied Palestine since October 7 and that 39% of them are now living in hotels. Some of these settlers have established their own “refugee” camp.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a war criminal, has been forced to cut $500 million shekels (the equivalent to over U.S. $135 million) from some governmental ministries to pay for the evacuation of the settlers due to the resistance. The resistance has shown that there is no safe place for these racist settlers to reside peacefully on stolen Palestinian lands even as their ongoing atrocities continue.

Auctions being held by Zionist institutions in the U.S. to sell off Palestinian lands are being met with protests, leading to some of them being shut down.

Hamas stated: “The zionist occupation authorities’ approval of the construction of 5,300 new settlement units in the settlements of the occupied West Bank is a clear expression of the zionist extremist government’s disregard for all international laws and resolutions that criminalize settlement and an affirmation of its continued work to seize more Palestinian land at a time when it is unleashing herds of criminal settlers to continue their aggression against our Palestinian people in the cities and towns of the West Bank, with full protection from the terrorist occupation army.

“We in the Hamas movement affirm that these fascist decisions will only add to our stationed people’s and their valiant resistance’s adherence to the option of remaining steadfast on this land, the escalation of resistance and clashes with the occupation on all axes, until the sweeping of their aggression from our land and sanctities.

“We call on the United Nations and the international community to take effective steps to deter this terrorist entity, to stop its brutal war on our people in Gaza and the West Bank and its frantic attempts to change the facts on the ground and to hold it accountable for the ongoing war crimes it is carrying out in full view of the entire world.” (Resistance News Network, July 4)