Palestinian farmer Fares Samamra says he left his home with his family, after being attacked by Israeli settlers
The United States announced the imposition of sanctions on three Israeli settlers, for the first time, on two agricultural sites, as part of new measures taken by Washington and London to stop the violent displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
The knight of Samamara may not carry a weapon, but he has great world power to defend him. And he still lost the battle.
A Palestinian sheep farmer living on the sunny slopes of the South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank, his battle with his neighbour, an Israeli settler named Yinon Levy, has drawn the United States and Britain into the conflict.
“Yinon Levy came here three years ago and started harassing me,” Faris says.
He added: “Before the war (in Gaza), it was normal. They would come with drones. But after a few days of October 7, it became dangerous. They were all carrying weapons. They started coming to us day and night. I have young children, Omar.” Some of them are four and five years old.”
Fares said Yinon was one of a group of local Israeli settlers who regularly came to harass his sheep with their dogs and weapons, and even, he says, to assault his family.
The farm of Israeli settler Yinon Levy is located on a hilltop in the southern occupied West Bank
“They destroyed water tanks, closed roads and shot sheep,” he said. “He told my wife that if we don’t leave here, we will all be killed.”
He added that when his wife insulted him, Yinon Levy hit her with the butt of his gun.
Shortly thereafter, Fares and his family left their village, Zanota. Activists say it is one of the four communities surrounding the settlers’ farm that were abandoned by its residents.
Yinon denied acting violently toward Palestinians in the area, and said that he did not own a weapon until very recently.
But it is subject to sanctions from both the United States and Britain.
The road to Yinon Farm looks like something out of a children’s picture book, a narrow path that winds back and forth up a steep hill, with cliffs and valleys branching off to the horizon on either side.
At the top, there’s a spacious hut next to a large shed, filled with sheep muffling the pop tunes coming from the radio.
Yinon Levy denies Britain’s allegations that he ‘used physical assault, threatened families with weapons and destroyed property’
Yinon said: “We protect these lands to ensure that they remain under Jewish ownership. Where there is a Jewish presence, there is no Arab presence. We monitor the land, and ensure that no unauthorized construction is done.”
Most countries consider the settlements, built on lands Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war, illegal under international law, although Israel disagrees. Settlement outposts are also illegal under Israeli law.
Britain said Yinon and another man “used physical assault, threatened families with weapons, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities.”
Yinon denied these accusations, and said that the Israeli government stands by his side.
He told the BBC: “I’m not worried. This is not against me personally, but against those who are obstructing the establishment of a Palestinian state. There are no legal measures against me (in Israel). Here, everything is fine.”
Both Britain and the United States say there are minimum levels of evidence that must be met, but neither has made this evidence public and has refused to share it with the BBC.
We sent Yinon a video of him on Palestinian land, approaching activists with a snarling dog. But he said the video was misleading, and that he was defending his flock.
We sent him another video in which he appears to be entering another Palestinian village with a gun last October. He declined to comment.
The sanctions came after an escalation in violence in the West Bank, following the Hamas attacks on October 7 and the Israeli war on Gaza.
The United Nations says violence by Israeli settlers has included physical attacks and death threats, and that the number of Palestinians displaced from their homes doubled last year to 1,539 people – with more than 80 percent of them leaving after October 7.
Britain said that Israel had failed to act, and described what it called “an environment of almost complete impunity for extremist settlers in the West Bank.”
Yinon said he received support from Israeli politicians.
“Many people called us and encouraged us,” he said. “Everyone said that when the bad guys are against you, you have to do something right.”
One politician who publicly supported Yinon in the wake of the sanctions was Zvi Sukkot, of the extreme Religious Zionist Party, and himself a settler.
Zvi Sukkot, an Israeli politician and settler, challenges the United States and Britain to present their evidence
He said settler violence was a “marginal phenomenon” and that people like Levy were victims of conspiracies.
He added: “When we have an effective judicial system in Israel, we do not want our allies to say: We will do this job for you.”
He continued: “If there had been evidence against Yinon Levy, he would have been in the Israeli prison. Who is Britain to say: We are smarter than Israeli intelligence?”
The Israeli police chief responsible for investigating complaints in the West Bank told the parliamentary committee, which Sukkot chairs, this week that half of the complaints filed about settler violence there were false, and that they came from “extremist left-wing organizations in Tel Aviv.”
Against this background, the sanctions imposed on a handful of individual settlers have not changed Israeli policies in the West Bank, but they have a financial impact.
Yinon’s Israeli bank account was frozen last month.
Some people currently subject to US and British sanctions have used crowdfunding to finance projects in their area – including a project to build a synagogue and education center at another hilltop settlement site called Moshe’s Farm.
Its owner, Moshe Sharvit, was sanctioned along with Yinon Levy last month.
But on Thursday, the US expanded sanctions to include several new targets, including the farm itself, putting this type of financing at risk.
Homes were destroyed in the Palestinian village of Zanuta
These sanctions may be more symbolic than substantive, but they signal American discontent — both for Israel’s leaders and for parts of President Biden’s Democratic base that were dismayed by images of war in Gaza, in an election year.
The head of the local settlers’ council, Shlomo Naaman, described this phenomenon as a “disgusting phenomenon” and said that the West Bank is being used as a scapegoat.
Yehuda Shaul, founder of the Ofek Research Center, said: “I think more than anything else, what is driving the reaction of Britain and the United States is the fear of a single settler attack that will spiral out of control.”
He added: “The West Bank (then) will explode like a volcano. We have another front, as if Gaza is not enough, and that the path to a regional war is almost unstoppable.”
Two sheep farmers in the occupied West Bank – one backed by a superpower and the other backed by the State of Israel. If the lifestyle here is simple, the politics are complicated.
From the Yinon farm located at the top of the hill, you can clearly see the ruins of the village of Zanota perched on the opposite hill, including the house that Fares Sammara left months ago.
Settlers painted a large blue Star of David on the base of a column in the village of Zanota
Many homes have been destroyed – their owners taking roofs and furniture into exile, and activists say settlers have smashed walls to prevent them from returning.
The abandoned village is slowly being taken over by vast banks of wild hibiscus that grow spontaneously.
On a pillar near the entrance, a large Star of David is painted in blue.
Settlers here point to Palestinian attacks and say they are afraid.
But it is the Palestinians who are leaving.
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