Israeli soldiers bound Mohamed Yousef’s hands behind his back as they dragged him to a military camp near the occupied West Bank’s Masafer Yatta, a collection of Palestinian villages in Hebron governorate, in late June.With him were his mother, his wife and two sisters, arrested on their land for confronting armed Israeli settlers.
Settlers often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.
Yousef knew this, so he went out to defend his farm when he saw the armed settlers.
But as is often the case, it was Mohamed, a Palestinian, who was punished. At the military camp, he was left with his family in the scorching sun for hours.
While Mohamed and his family were released the next day, they fear they will not have the means to defend themselves for much longer.
“The police, the [Israeli] army and settlers often attack us all at once. What are we supposed to do?” Yousef said.
The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on the incident.
Useful pretext
Things might be about to get worse for Yousef and his family, who, along with about 1,200 other Palestinians, could soon be expelled from their lands.
On June 17, during the zenith of Israel’s war on Iran, the Israeli government submitted a letter, a copy of which has been seen by Al Jazeera, to the Israeli High Court of Justice that included …