Over 400 people who live in the West Bank’s Etzion settlement bloc have signed a petition condemning violent attacks against Palestinian property and residents at the hands of Israeli settlers, one of its initiators told The Times of Israel on Sunday.

The appeal, disseminated last week, addressed local religious and political leaders, calling on them to speak up against the violence. The beginning of the petition quotes a verse from the Torah warning the Jewish people to behave in such a way “that the land not spew you out.”

“We, residents of Gush Etzion, lovers of Zion and the Land of Israel, feel that we cannot remain silent in the face of the terrible wave of violence in recent weeks — horrific acts such as houses set on fire, vehicles burned, property and flocks destroyed, shooting, physical assaults carried out against Arabs residing in the Gush Etzion bloc, with the intent of harming children, women, and men,” the petition reads. “These acts stand in violation of the law, morality, and halakha [Jewish law].”

Rabbi Shaul Judelman, 46, a resident of the local settlement of Tekoa, said the petition has been circulating at the initiative of a group of about 40 Gush Etzion residents who have been organizing to oppose extremist violence for over a year.

“Since the war began, we have been hearing of attacks by extremist youth, mostly against Palestinians in the area, that went beyond any pale of justification,” Judelman, who has lived in the Gush Etzion area since he moved to Israel from the United States in 2000, told The Times of Israel in a phone interview.

“It wasn’t people defending themselves. It was people going out and burning houses or killing sheep. And [we had] a sense that this sometimes is happening around our communities and we have a responsibility to address it,” he said.

The IDF has recorded over 752 incidents of nationalistic crime and settler violence since the start of the year. The total for 2024 was 675 incidents.

“After October 7, the sense that what........

© The Times of Israel