Tell Tells 2 Stories About the Limits of Containment in the West Bank/Judea and Samaria
Competing Israeli and Palestinian accounts of the deadly confrontation near Nablus highlight deep disputes over settler violence, terrorism, and the risk of wider unrest
By Giorgia Valente / The Media Line
The deadly confrontation in Tell near Nablus last week and the conflict that followed have intensified competing claims over settler violence and Palestinian attacks, while raising a broader question: how much further can the West Bank/Judea and Samaria deteriorate before localized confrontations develop into a sustained uprising in the form of an intifada
The precise sequence of events at Tell remains hotly contested.
Palestinian accounts said armed settlers entered the area surrounding Tell, southwest of Nablus, and confronted residents. During the encounter, a Palestinian seized a weapon from one of the Israelis and opened fire. Israeli soldiers then became involved. Four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed.
Israeli accounts characterized the incident as a terrorist attack and emphasized that Palestinians had taken possession of a firearm and used it against Israelis. Publicly available videos documented parts of the confrontation but did not conclusively establish who fired every shot or the sequence leading to each fatality.
Naomi Kahn, director of the International Division at the Israeli land-use advocacy group Regavim, cautioned that her assessment was based only on publicly available information. She nevertheless argued that initial allegations against settlers often receive greater attention than later information complicating the original account.
“It comes onto the screen with a roar, and it goes off the screen with a whimper,” Kahn told The Media Line.
Simcha Rothman, an Israeli lawmaker, similarly argued that the classification of an incident can determine the wider narrative.
“We do not count as victims of terrorism people who went out to attack others and died as a result of self-defense,” Rothman told The Media Line.
He said Palestinians who attacked Israelis, seized a weapon and were subsequently shot could still be recorded in international databases as Palestinian fatalities connected to settlers. Rothman described the wider discourse surrounding settler violence as “a blood libel and wild lies,” he said.
Nidal Foqaha, a Palestinian political analyst, disputed the idea that Tell could be understood separately from the conditions surrounding it. He described the incident as a foreseeable result of settlement expansion, agricultural outposts and pressure on Palestinian land and livelihoods.
“Unfortunately, this is the result of the Israeli government’s ongoing policies on the ground, particularly the expansion of the settlement project through the many farms spread across the Palestinian territories, mainly throughout Area C. It has now started expanding into Area B and probably even Area A,” Foqaha told The Media Line.
“This policy, which is linked to violent and terrorist behavior by radical Israeli settlers in the West Bank, has created enormous despair and frustration among Palestinians. As a result, we witnessed what happened on Friday in Tell,” he asserted
According to Foqaha,“Palestinians have found themselves losing their sources of livelihood, including their land, olive trees, sheep and cattle. This situation resulted in this explosion. Unfortunately, it was expected. Anyone looking at the reality on the ground and what is happening in the West Bank would have expected that it would come one day,” he claimed.
Abdallah Abu Rahma, director general of Popular Action and Resilience Support at the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said Palestinian residents were initially unarmed and inside the village when the Israelis approached.
“The Palestinian citizens in Tell were not armed. They were on their own land and inside their homes,” Abu Rahma said. “They did not go to the settlers. They were in their homes. The settlers were the ones who came to them.”
He acknowledged that a Palestinian later took possession of a weapon but disputed the interpretation that the man intended to carry out a premeditated attack.
“It is clear that Farouq was running away from them,” Abu Rahma said. “Farouq then managed to throw away the weapon he had taken because he did not want to carry out any operation. He went to surrender himself to the army,” he added.
Israeli accounts maintain that the seized firearm was used against Israelis, and the public material does not resolve every stage of the encounter.
The territorial status of the area is also disputed. Kahn placed the confrontation “more or less on a seamline between Area C” and “Area B.” Under the Oslo framework, Area C remains under full Israeli civilian and security control, while in Area B the Palestinian Authority(PA) administers civilian affairs and Israel retains security authority. Several international outlets, however, located the event in Area A, where the PA holds civilian and security responsibility.
Rothman argued that unauthorized entry into an area does not justify violence against the person who entered.
“Israeli Arabs, citizens of Israel, enter Area A all the time,” he said, noting that many travel there to shop. “There is a subtext that says that if you are Jewish, there are areas you are forbidden to enter.”
Beyond the legal dispute, the four interviews produced sharply different assessments of why armed civilians approached the village, how the military responded and whether Israeli security forces apply the law impartially.
Abu Rahma argued that the distinction between settlers and the military has become increasingly blurred since October 7, 2023, as reservists and members of local security units were mobilized.
“Today, the role of the army and the settlers is comprehensive. In previous stages, we used to say that the army protected the settlers during their attacks. But today, what we see is that the army participates in the settlers’ attacks,” he claimed.
Kahn rejected the characterization of settler violence as an organized campaign. She acknowledged that some Israelis attack Palestinians but described those involved as “a small handful of generally very young people,” including minors who have left conventional family and educational frameworks and sometimes also confront the IDF.
“It’s not an organized anything,” she said. “It’s a collection of troubled teens,” she added.
Kahn estimated that fewer than 0.2% of the Israeli population living in Judea and Samaria/The West Bank had participated in such confrontations. She described genuine attacks against Palestinians as “deplorable” and said those responsible should be investigated and prosecuted, but rejected using those cases to characterize the broader Israeli population in the territory.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has documented a sustained rise in incidents involving Israeli settlers that resulted in Palestinian casualties or property damage, including physical assaults, damage to homes and vehicles, livestock theft, destruction of agricultural land and restrictions on access to water and grazing areas.
Regavim disputes how those incidents are categorized. Its 2025 report, False Flags and Real Agendas, examined 8,332 incident entries used in an OCHA dataset covering January 2016 through April 2023. The organization argued that the database combined deliberate attacks by Israelis with acts of self-defense, administrative enforcement, confrontations involving Israeli security forces, and Palestinians injured or killed while carrying out attacks or alleged attacks. It cited OCHA’s definition, which says its data “also includes Palestinians killed or injured during attacks or alleged attacks they perpetrated against Israeli settlers.” Regavim acknowledged that Israelis sometimes commit violence against Palestinians and said such cases merit condemnation and prosecution.
OCHA’s figures document reported events and their consequences but do not resolve the disputed circumstances of every case. Regavim’s methodological criticism, in turn, does not establish that all or most reported attacks were incorrectly classified.
For Palestinians living near settlements and outposts, the effect is measured not only through casualty data but also through access to farmland, roads, grazing areas and water sources.
Foqaha said agricultural outposts were particularly consequential because a small number of residents could establish control over a much larger area.
“We are talking about approximately 130 farms in the West Bank. We are not talking about tens of thousands of people living on these farms. Most of them contain between five and ten people, and sometimes even fewer,” he said.
“This means that, if there is a political decision and if there is the will, the phenomenon can definitely be contained. But until today, there has been no such decision,” he added.
In the Jordan Valley, Foqaha said he had personally witnessed the effect on Palestinian agriculture.
“I see that the settlers throughout the Jordan Valley have not left a single water spring for Palestinians to irrigate their crops or provide water for their livestock,” he claimed.
“This is an example of what is happening throughout the Palestinian territories. Palestinians are aware that there is an ultimate objective behind all these policies. When you take away all their sources of livelihood, prevent them from working inside Israel and impose all these restrictions on them, it is an attempt to push them out of this space,” he added.
Abu Rahma separately claimed that small groups based in settler outposts communicate and coordinate with one another.
“These groups are organized and coordinated. They communicate with one another in order to attack Palestinian citizens,” he alleged.
That assertion directly contradicts Kahn’s description of those involved as disconnected and troubled young people rather than participants in an organized structure.
Following Tell, the Israeli military intensified operations across the northern West Bank/Judea and Samaria. Roads and village entrances were blocked, searches were conducted, and dozens of Palestinians were detained. Israeli authorities described the operations as necessary to locate suspects, seize weapons and prevent further attacks. Kahn argued that the restrictions primarily concerned access to Israeli-controlled territory rather than movement within areas administered by the Palestinian Authority.
Abu Rahma said the closures extended across a broader network of Palestinian roads and village entrances.
“The Israeli army is blocking roads. This is the army’s role alongside the settler groups,” he said. “Villages are completely closed, and their gates are closed, preventing citizens from entering or leaving,” he added.
“This affects freedom of movement, freedom of worship, access to education, access to medical treatment and the ability to work,” he said.
The military response was accompanied by rhetoric of retaliation from members of Israel’s governing coalition, while further attacks and confrontations were reported around Nablus, Hebron and nearby villages.
Rothman placed responsibility for Palestinian attacks on the Palestinian Authority’s education system, official media and prisoner-payment policy. He also argued that “European governments financing Palestinian institutions should examine where that money is directed and whether it supports structures that encourage violence.”
Foqaha, by contrast, defended the PA’s decision not to deploy its forces into an open confrontation with the Israeli army or armed settlers.
“The suggestion that it should send forces into a confrontation is not realistic at all, and it is not responsible,” he said.
“This is actually what the radical, extreme voices in Israel want. They want an open confrontation with the PA in order to turn the entire West Bank into what happened in the Gaza Strip—or, in the least severe scenario, into what happened in the refugee camps,” he alleged.
Foqaha said the PA had instead chosen political and diplomatic channels to prevent further deterioration.
“It would bring extremely damaging and fatal consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis,” he said. “This is what the Palestinian Authority does not want,” he added.
The danger is that the ability of political and security institutions to restrain events may weaken as confrontations become more frequent and geographically dispersed.
Abu Rahma called for peaceful popular resistance, local protection committees and international intervention.
“One side has protection and assistance from the army, the police, the judiciary and legislation, as well as access to weapons,” he said. “The other side consists of civilians whose fundamental means of resistance are remaining on their land and maintaining their resilience,” he asserted.
He warned that continued attacks on families, homes and property could eventually produce reactions political institutions might be unable to contain.
“It is a human instinct to defend our children, our property and our existence,” Abu Rahma said. “Unfortunately violence can lead to further violence,” he added.
Rothman rejected the premise that the principal danger of escalation stems from Israeli military operations or settler violence. Citing open-source material concerning PA forces, he described them as “an organized army of the Palestinian Authority” and claimed that elements within the system were “planning an October 7 for us, from their perspective, in Judea and Samaria.”
Kahn likewise said Israel could not depend entirely on PA forces to prevent violence, pointing to previous cases in which Palestinian security personnel were accused of attacking Israelis. She argued that Israel must retain the ability to enter PA-administered areas, arrest suspects and impose temporary restrictions when necessary to prevent “further flare-ups.”
Brought to you by www.srnnews.com
Be First to Comment