One bright morning in October, a dozen soldiers riding in several military jeeps rolled up to the Issa family home in the northern West Bank village of Sanur.

The troops hopped out of the vehicles and grabbed Tayir Issa and his son Jamal without explanation, handcuffing and blindfolding them. Soldiers proceeded to kick and shove Issa and his son onto the ground, pushing their heads into the dirt as they showered the pair with insults and epithets.

Meanwhile, other soldiers arrived in a large civilian cargo truck.

In extraordinary scenes captured on camera by an individual who filmed the incident, the soldiers, in full combat gear, can be seen wrangling the family’s cattle into the truck via a makeshift ramp rigged up by the uniformed Israel Defense Forces troops.

Despite Tayir and Jamal’s repeated requests to speak with a senior officer or see a legal warrant for the seizure of the 14 cows, no such documentation was produced.

Instead, the cattle were driven away by the soldiers.

The family has yet to recover their livestock, their primary source of income, and in all likelihood, they never will.

The cows were taken, the army eventually admitted, in response to a request from two radical settler activists who run illegal farming outposts in the Jordan Valley and had falsely claimed to own the animals.

It was one of numerous instances of IDF soldiers assisting settlers in seizing Palestinian livestock or showing a willingness to work with Israeli extremists carrying out even worse crimes.

Across the West Bank, observers say, extreme, and often violent, settler activism is now taking place with the protection, cooperation and sometimes active participation of IDF soldiers of different types.

Increasingly, the IDF is cooperating with the extremists who set up illegal farming outposts and stations soldiers in those outposts, who are deployed in situations of violence — or “friction” as the army euphemistically calls it — that at least one outpost leader has described as a deliberate tool for displacing Palestinian communities.

This has generated a situation in which IDF soldiers are intimately involved in daily occurrences of extremist settler harassment, and frequently either turn a blind eye to such incidents or intervene on behalf of the settlers.

In the most troubling situations, some IDF soldiers participate in the violence itself, especially those mobilized in regional defense, or Hagmar, units, made up of reservist settlers who are tasked with operating in areas near their homes.

In a number of cases, the soldiers have themselves been extremist settler activists, who have used their army-issued rifles to fire on Palestinians.

In a written statement, the IDF said it “strongly condemns incidents of violence and crime and is responsible for maintaining security and public order in Judea and Samaria and the Jordan Valley,” referring to the West Bank.

“Its role is to protect all populations in Judea and Samaria, and the Jordan Valley, while implementing the decisions of the political leadership, all in accordance with the law, international law, and military orders,” the statement added. “All IDF service members, both regular and reserve, are fully committed to this.”

Cases of violence and theft were described as “irregular incidents” that were “thoroughly investigated and handled in accordance with the findings.”

Critics say, though, that while the army regularly probes allegations of wrongdoing, investigations rarely result in prosecutions or convictions.

In the Issa family case, because the theft was caught on tape, legal proceedings were able to expose the IDF’s role in the act, though justice has yet to be served.

Following a petition to the High Court of Justice in November 2025 by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, the army admitted in a formal submission to the court in December that the officer who ordered soldiers to seize the cattle had done so “without authority” and that the seizure had therefore been “unlawful.”

Video footage of IDF soldiers unlawfully removing cattle from the Issa family farm in the West Bank Palestinian village of Sanur, October 10, 2025. (Courtesy)

The IDF claimed that the cattle had been taken “in the sincere belief” that the settlers owned the livestock, and said that since it was a case of theft, the claim should be handled by the police and not the army.

Since the IDF does not have the authority to investigate property claims, the army told the court, it could not fulfill the demands of the petitioners to return the livestock to the Issa family, passing the case to the police.

The police have yet to recover the cows for the Issa family.

The army added that it was still examining the claims of violence made by the Issa father and son.

The harassment of rural Palestinian communities

The explicit goal of the settler extremists who establish illegal outposts and engage in violence against rural Palestinians is to push them off the land they own, or otherwise control or use, as part of their broader project to assert Jewish control over the entire West Bank.

The Palestinian Bedouin have become a specific target for forcible population transfer efforts because they graze their livestock across large tracts of land in the West Bank and their communities stand in the way of a rapidly expanding network of Israeli settlements and illegal outposts.

The Bedouin are also especially vulnerable because many of their hamlets and homes lack any kind of building permit or zoning plan as required by the Israeli authorities who administer Area C of the West Bank, and are therefore illegal.

This makes it far easier for extremist activists to harass and terrorize them, and, once they flee, prevent them from returning.

Over the last three years, IDF forces have been repeatedly documented as either turning a blind eye to the harassment and violence by settler extremists against such communities or actively assisting them.

Under the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties, the IDF, as the occupying authority, is obligated to protect the local population, including preserving public order and preventing the destruction of their property. Forcing local populations off their land is also prohibited except as a temporary security measure.

Ras ‘Ein al-’Auja was a Bedouin community in the southern Jordan valley, but incessant harassment and violence by extremists who built illegal outposts close to the hamlet ultimately led to its total depopulation in January this year.

In one notorious incident in March 2025, dozens of settlers entered the hamlet and stole some 1,500 sheep and goats from the community, one of the largest such thefts of livestock to date.

Footage from Looking the Occupation in the Eye, a left-wing organization that publishes evidence of settler violence against Palestinians, showed a man in IDF fatigues and an IDF-issued assault rifle present in the village at the time, as well as activists asking military personnel in an IDF armored vehicle for help in stopping the theft, to no avail.

protective presence activists encounter an unprecedented event in a Palestinian shepherd community? They bravely film and talk to everyone they can to achieve justice. They couldn't stop the settlers from stealing 1,000 sheep – but they documented it. pic.twitter.com/qcXlXMxYt4 — מסתכלים לכיבוש בעיניים (@Mistaclim) March 11, 2025

protective presence activists encounter an unprecedented event in a Palestinian shepherd community? They bravely film and talk to everyone they can to achieve justice. They couldn't stop the settlers from stealing 1,000 sheep – but they documented it. pic.twitter.com/qcXlXMxYt4

— מסתכלים לכיבוש בעיניים (@Mistaclim) March 11, 2025

Ras ‘Ein al-’Auja had been the last Bedouin community remaining in the southern Jordan Valley.

According to the B’Tselem human rights organization, 59 Palestinian communities, home to over 4,000 people, have been displaced since that date due to settler violence and harassment in Areas C and B of the West Bank. Another 500-odd Palestinians have been forced out of their homes in 16 partially displaced West Bank communities.

The kind of harassment and theft witnessed in Ras ‘Ein al-’Auja has been repeated across the West Bank, either with the same indifference shown by the IDF soldiers in the mass livestock theft incident, or with their active participation and assistance.

In another incident of livestock theft by settlers seemingly abetted by the army, IDF soldiers were caught on security camera footage accompanying settlers as they made off with 150 head of sheep from the hamlet of Khirbet al-Halawa in the southern West Bank one night in January this year.

The IDF claimed in response that the troops had been alerted to the theft of livestock from a Jewish shepherd by Palestinians. But as previously admitted by the IDF itself in the Issa family case, police actions such as property recovery are not within the military’s authority, especially without a lawful order, which was not presented in the Khirbet al-Halawa incident.

In a response to this article, the IDF said that incidents in which IDF soldiers “exceeded their authority” have been examined and “steps taken to prevent similar incidents in the future.” It also claimed that in some incidents of IDF involvement in the seizure of livestock, the actions were “carried out by the police in accordance with the law and with an IDF escort,” but did not say which incidents it was referring to.

Doron Meinrath, a longtime activist with Looking the Occupation in the Eye and a member of a so-called “protective presence” squad in the Jordan Valley for several years, said he has repeatedly seen IDF forces participating in the harassment of rural Palestinian communities.

Protective presence units formed by various left-wing groups are active across the West Bank in trying to shield Palestinians from Israeli abuse.

In one incident Meinrath said he observed in June 2024, also in Ras ‘Ein al-’Auja, IDF and police forces raided the village following an accusation from Zohar Sabah — an extremist under indictment for assault against Israeli human rights activists and under sanction by the UK and other nations — that herders in Ras ‘Ein al-’Auja had stolen his sheep.

Police........

© The Times of Israel