The United States has announced sanctions against three more
Israeli settlers and, for the first time, two farming outposts, as part of new
measures by Washington and London to stop the violent displacement of
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
Fares Samamreh may not carry a gun, but he has a global
superpower defending him. He's still losing the fight.
A Palestinian sheep farmer on the sun-tinged slopes of the
South Hebron Hills in the occupied West Bank, his battle with his neighbor, an
Israeli settler called Yinon Levy, has drawn both the US and the UK into the
dispute.
"Yinon Levy came here three years ago and started
bothering me," Fares said, his head wrapped in a piece of white cotton,
his eyes narrowed in a permanent squint against the sun.
"Before the war [in Gaza] it was the usual thing; they
would come with drones. But a few days after October 07, it became serious.
They all had guns. They started coming to us day and night. I have little kids,
some of them are four and five years old."
Fares said Yinon was one of a group of local Israeli
settlers who would regularly come to harass his sheep with their dogs and
weapons, and even, he says, to assault his family.
"They destroyed water tanks, closed down roads, they
fire at the sheep," he said. "He told my wife if we didn't leave
here, we'd all be killed."
He said when his wife then swore at him, Yinon Levy hit her
with the butt of his gun.
Soon afterward, Fares and his family left their village of
Zanuta. Activists say it's one of four communities around the settler's farm
that have been abandoned by their residents.
Yinon has denied acting violently toward Palestinians in the
area -- and said he didn't own a gun until very recently.
But he's the subject of sanctions from both the US and the
UK.
The road to Yinon's farm is straight out of a children's picture-book; a narrow
path that winds back and forth up a steep hill, slopes and valleys dropping away
to the horizon on either side.
At the top, a spacious bungalow stands next to a large shed,
full of bleating sheep smothering the strains of pop music from a radio.
"We're safeguarding these lands to ensure they remain
under Jewish ownership," Yinon said. "When there is a Jewish
presence, then there is no Arab presence. We keep a watchful eye on the land,
ensuring that no unauthorized construction takes place."
Most
countries deem the settlements, which are built on land captured by Israel in
1967 in the Middle East War, to be illegal under international law, although
Israel disagrees. The settler outposts are also illegal under Israeli law.
The UK said that Yinon and another man had "used
physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as
part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities".
Yinon denied the allegations, and said that the Israeli
government was on his side.
"I'm not worried," he told the BBC. "This is
not against me personally - it's against those who obstruct the creation of a
Palestinian state. There's no legal process against me [in Israel]. Here,
everything is fine."
Both the UK and the US say there is a threshold of evidence
that must be met - but neither have made that evidence public and declined to
share it with the BBC.
We sent Yinon a video appearing to show him on Palestinian
land, approaching activists with a snarling dog. He said it was misleading, and
that he was defending his flock.
We sent him another video apparently showing him entering
another Palestinian village with a gun last October. He declined to comment.
The sanctions came after a surge in violence in the West
Bank, following the October 07 Hamas attacks and Israel's war in Gaza.
The UN says violence by Israeli settlers included physical
attacks and death threats, and that the number of Palestinians displaced from
their homes last year doubled to 1,539 - with more than 80% of them leaving
after October 07.
The UK
has said Israel is failing to act, and has described "an environment of
near total impunity for settler extremists in the West Bank".
Yinon
said that he had received support from Israeli politicians.
"Many called and encouraged us," he said.
"Everyone said that when the bad people are against you, you must be doing
something right."
One of the politicians who publicly backed Yinon in the wake
of the sanctions was Zvi Sukkot of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party
- a settler himself.
He said that settler violence was a "marginal phenomenon"
and that those like Levy were the victims of conspiracies.
"When we have a functioning judicial system in Israel,
we don't want our allies to say, 'we'll do the job for you'," he said.
"If there was evidence against Yinon Levy, he would be
in Israeli prison. Who is Britain to come and say, 'we are smarter than Israeli
intelligence'?"
The Israeli police commander responsible for investigating
complaints in the West Bank told Sukkot's parliamentary committee this week
that half the complaints filed about settler violence there were false, and
that they originated from "radical left-wing organizations in Tel
Aviv".
Against this backdrop, sanctions on a handful of individual
settlers have not shifted Israeli policies in the West Bank, but they are
having a financial impact.
Yinon's Israeli bank account was frozen last month.
Some of those currently under US and UK sanctions have used
crowdfunding to finance projects for their area - including one for a synagogue
and educational centre at another hilltop outpost called Moshe's Farm.
Its owner, Moshe Sharvit, was sanctioned along with Yinon
Levy last month.
On
Thursday the US expanded sanctions to cover several new targets, including the
farm itself - putting this kind of funding at risk.
These sanctions may be more symbolic than substantial, but
they signal American displeasure - both to Israel's leaders, and to the parts
of President Biden's Democratic base who have been dismayed by images of the
war in Gaza, in an election year.
The chairman of the local Yesha (settlers) Council, Shlomo
Ne'eman, called it "a disgusting phenomenon" and said the West Bank was
being used as a scapegoat.
"I think more than anything, what drives the response
of the UK [and] the US is the fear of one settler attack that goes 'out of
control'," said Yehuda Shaul, founder of the Ofek Centre, a think tank
which campaigns to end Israel's occupation.
"The West Bank [then] erupts like a volcano. And we
have another front, as if Gaza is not enough, and the road to regional war is
almost unstoppable then."
Two sheep farmers in the occupied West Bank - one backed by a superpower, the
other by the Israeli state. If the lifestyle here is simple, the politics are
complicated.
From Yinon's hilltop farm, you can clearly see the ruins of
Zanuta perched on the next hill, with the home Fares Samamreh left months ago.
Many of the houses are ravaged - roofs and furniture taken
by their owners into exile; walls smashed by settlers to prevent them
returning, activists say.
The deserted village is slowly being taken over by vast
banks of wild mallow.
On a post near the entrance, a large Star of David has been
scrawled in blue paint.
Settlers here point to attacks by Palestinians, and say they
are scared. But it's Palestinians who are leaving.
