The body of 40-year-old Bilal Saleh was left lying in the middle of the olive grove this Saturday morning, suffering a gunshot that broke his chest. The only thing that could get him across the field and up the mountain was one of the wooden stairs that lead to the olives, as seen in the video recorded by one of those present. Moments earlier, four armed Jewish settlers had run down the slope of a neighboring settlement under the watch of Israeli soldiers, according to multiple witness statements collected after the memorial service in the occupied West Bank village of Sawiya. The disbelieving witnesses who witnessed Bilal Saleh’s murder by settlers included his sons Mohamed, 14, and Musa, 8, as well as other relatives and neighbors. In the city south of Nablus, there is a mix of condolence and helplessness due to the impunity that residents say also exists in the West Bank in the shadow of the war between Hamas and Israel.
“What happened today reflects well the increasing violence since October 7,” said Mohamed Salem, 48, an official in the Palestinian Authority’s education ministry and cousin of the dead farmer. It refers to the day of the Hamas attack on Israeli territory, which, according to the country’s authorities, killed more than 1,400 people. Since then, there have been more than a hundred deaths in the West Bank at the hands of settlers or Israeli troops in clashes not seen since the Second Intifada (2000-2005). Despite everything, there is nothing to do with the more than 7,700 deaths from the Israeli bombings in Gaza reported by the Ministry of Health of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip this Saturday.
Protests for the victims in this enclave have recently taken place on the streets of West Bank cities such as Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron and Jenin. The latest demonstrations came after the Israeli army invaded Gaza by land on Friday evening. “We are more afraid,” adds Mohamed Salem. “Nobody condemns what is happening, not even the Arab countries. “We are alone,” he complains. He asserts that there is a campaign of harassment and that “for them, all Palestinians are Hamas.” More than 1,500 people have been arrested in the West Bank since October 7.
The olive harvest, which Palestinian families celebrate as a celebration of community with the land, ended in tragedy in Sawiya. Exactly one of the settlers, protected by the Israeli army and roaming freely trying to impose its law on the Arab residents, pulled the trigger of an M-16 rifle twice, according to people interviewed after the funeral. The facts were also confirmed by Israeli military sources to Haaretz newspaper. “These incidents affect Israel’s legitimacy at the strategic level and cause serious damage,” the source commented to the medium, emphasizing that only Palestinians had died in the increasing settler clashes.
Hani Saleh, 21, raises the sight of his rifle to his right eye with a gesture and tells what happened: “First [los colonos] They were placed on a hill about 300 meters away. Then the army came, but the soldiers did nothing. After a while four settlers came towards the valley where we were. Then we started collecting things but Bilal didn’t have time. “One of them got ready, raised the gun and fired twice.” One bullet hit him in the chest, another in the side, emphasizes Saleh, pointing with his hand to his ribs. Those present could do nothing to save the owner of a handful of olive trees and a supermarket employee.
Mohamed (14 years old), left, and Musa (8), sons of Bilal Saleh (40), were shot this morning by a Jewish settler while picking olives in an olive grove in the occupied West Bank
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Several children listen to the story of Hani Saleh in a multipurpose room full of plastic chairs in the center of Sawiya, population 3,000 to 4,000, where neighbors get married and say goodbye, as was the case this Saturday. Mohamed, a small 14-year-old boy with a Palestinian flag scarf around his neck, barely speaks a word and says he was sitting in one of the trees when the settler tried to steal his father’s cell phone. He assumes that they wanted to stop Bilal Saleh from raising the alarm about the arrival of armed settlers. Then a shot from about four meters away, witnesses estimate. “Go home,” says Hani Saleh, saying the military asked her without being interested in the victim. Since there was no ambulance, they resorted to the stairs.
The Israeli NGO BTselem, which monitors the rights of the Palestinian population, has in recent days denounced the harassment of settlers in olive groves and even published how an observer mission was driven away by gunfire from some fields in the south of Hebron (West Bank). They have also shown these settlers in videos in which they appear armed and in army uniforms. After an attack this week on an olive grove by a group of settlers, Palestinians in the West Bank city of Deir Istiya found leaflets on the windshields of their vehicles threatening them to flee to Jordan or be forcibly deported, Haaretz reported.
It is not easy to go to Sawiya to find out details about the farmer’s death. The roads are systematically blocked by mountains of dirt. This blockade imposed by Israeli agents exacerbates the problem of occupation. Two Israeli security forces vehicles try to prevent the reporter from reaching the city where Bilal Saleh lived. Access is only possible via an unmarked dirt road, which of course does not appear in mapping applications.
Access to natural resources such as land, crops or water is a constant part of the conflict. The need of the hour is to seize territory from the Palestinians in order to expand Israel’s colonies, its road network and its security belt, as Mohamed Salem wearily complains. The settlers’ raids also aim to uproot olive trees, a traditional crop that does not require excessive care and that the population can reconcile with the sedentary lifestyle imposed by the Israeli authorities. “Last year, the settlers of the Eli settlement broke the pipes that supply us with water,” says Salem.
Bilal Saleh, in a photo provided by his family, two days before his assassination
In Sawiya, from the terrace of Ali Sayed, 59, you can see the possessions of the Israeli occupiers of the Eli settlement on the hill opposite. You can see the blue and white flag, guardhouses, cranes and new buildings. “Just yesterday they were firing aerial shots at the farmers in this olive grove down here,” he says. “We believe they have the right to shoot us,” the Education Ministry official added. “Our main problem is the settlers. The second is the army.”
It was shortly after five a.m. on Saturday when 55-year-old Abed Rahim met with his nephew Bilal Saleh at the mosque for the first prayer of the day, the so-called Al Fajer. “Bilal was grateful that the harvest was ending… and now look where he is,” he comments dazedly as he enters the mosque for one of the afternoon prayers.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_