Editor’s Note: As I finished writing this, 13-year-old Palestinian child Aysam Jihad Ma’alla, from the West Bank village of Beita, who went into a coma a month ago, succumbed to his injuries from an Israeli attack on the olive harvest. Israel killed another kid. This piece is dedicated to him, and the other children who did not get to live in a free homeland.

Earlier this month, near Ramallah, the occupied West Bank, 200 Israeli settlers descended on Palestinian villages like a mob sent by the state. They set cars on fire, and roamed through streets with assault rifles while Israeli soldiers guarded their advance. Palestinian families hid as settlers poured gasoline and lit fires, while soldiers blocked ambulances from entering. This was not an isolated incident. It was not spontaneous. It was not “clashes.” It was organized political violence. It was a state-backed terror attack.

Just days before, in the village of Ar-Rihiya south of Hebron, nine-year-old Mohammad al-Hallaq was playing football in the street when Israeli forces shot him in the head. He died before his family reached him. No headlines in Western news. Another Palestinian child executed, another life treated as disposable under occupation.

Mohammad was the 1001st Palestinian killed by Israeli forces and settlers in the occupied West Bank since October 7, 2023—among them 213 children, some as young as two years old.

His killing is not separate from settler violence. It is necessary to the colonial project. The bullet that killed Mohammad was fired by the same ideology that burned cars in Ramallah, the same system that arms settlers, the same state that authorizes terror against Palestinians as a tool of control.

Call them what they are. Israeli settlers are not civilians. They are not “fringe extremists.” They are not “nationalists.” They are a state-directed paramilitary arm deployed to ethnically cleanse Palestinian land. Every week, they burn, beat, shoot, and expel Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank, and every week they do it with government financing, military protection, and full impunity under apartheid law. The world must stop laundering their crimes. This is terrorism.

Over seventy settler attacks were recorded in just one week from October 7-13, according to the United Nations. These attacks killed Palestinians, injured nearly one hundred, destroyed property and farmland, and displaced entire families.

On October 10 in Beita village, settlers, accompanied by Israeli forces, attacked Palestinian farmers and international activists harvesting olives, using live ammunition, tear gas, and physical assault. Sixty Palestinians were injured, several vehicles burned, and farming tools were seized.

On October 8, in the village of Deir Jarir,, settlers opened fire alongside Israeli soldiers and killed a 26-year-old Palestinian man. On October 11 in Turmus Ayya, settlers attacked farmers during the olive harvest, a key economic activity for Palestinians, and destroyed at least 200 olive trees.

On October 13, near At Taybe, settlers and Israeli forces forced farmers off their land, assaulted them, confiscated vehicles, and banned their return without “prior coordination.” Settlers vandalized 130 olive trees and seized roughly 1,000 kilograms of harvested olives.

In July of this year, in the northern Jordan Valley, settler militias arrived in Israeli military vehicles and forced entire Palestinian herding communities to dismantle their own shelters and flee after waves of settler raids. This is forced transfer, a war crime under Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. But, Israel wants the world to believe settler violence is a problem of undisciplined individuals rather than state policy.

Settler militias are trained, organized, and frequently wear uniforms. They carry government-issued assault rifles. They scout targeted Palestinian villages before attacking and coordinate raids in convoys. During attacks, the Israeli army blocks roads, surrounds the area, and prevents Palestinians from defending themselves. Afterward, no settler is arrested. Instead, Palestinians are detained, and Israeli politicians celebrate the defense of Jewish land.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, now oversees civil administration in the West Bank under the Ministry of Defense. He has openly declared his mission is to either exterminate Palestinians or drive Palestinians away from their lands—even boasting that expanding settlements will “bury the idea of a Palestinian state.” His government subsidizes settlement housing, shields violent settler outposts from demolition, and fast-tracks land theft through new settler-only roads. Illegal outposts built by settler militias are later legalized by the Israeli government. Violence first, legislation later. This is how annexation advances.

Hundreds of Palestinian communities now face this coercive environment. In East Jerusalem, over 1,000 Palestinians face eviction by settler organizations like Ateret Cohanim. In Masafer Yatta, entire villages are being erased by settler raids and military orders. In the Jordan Valley, Palestinian shepherds are being forced off lands they have lived on for generations.

The Rome Statute defines apartheid as an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one group over another. Israel operates two systems of law in the West Bank: civilian law for Jewish settlers, military law for Palestinians. Settlers can build freely. Palestinians are denied permits. Settlers receive state-funded infrastructure. Palestinians face demolitions and land seizures. Settlers can carry rifles. Palestinians are shot for carrying olives. This is how Israel was created: on the blood and bones of Palestinians from “refugees” and Jewish militias that expelled over 50% of Palestine’s indigenous population by 1949.

To every government feigning confusion, there is no confusion on the ground. Forced displacement is a war crime. Collective punishment is a war crime. Settlement building is a war crime. Organizing civilians into armed groups to enforce territorial domination is state-sanctioned terrorism.

A moral world would treat the killers of Mohammad al-Hallaq as terrorists. A lawful world would dismantle settlements immediately and prosecute Israeli officials and settler commanders at the International Criminal Court. A just world would bring about the total and complete liberation of Palestine. Instead, the world rewards Israel with weapons, shields it from sanctions, grants it impunity, and accepts the lie of “security” to justify slaughter.

There will be no peace built on stolen land. No ceasefire can legitimize apartheid and occupation. The settlements must fall, every last one. The militias must be disarmed. The land must be returned to its rightful people. Anything less is complicity in a crime that has gone on for seventy-seven years too long.

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