Israeli ‘settlers’ violently assault children and adults in front of bound families

Israeli terrorists euphemistically known as ‘settlers’ invaded and terrorised a West Bank village on Sunday 15 March 2026. The ethno-supremacist land thieves attacked Khirbet Humsa, rounded up families and then beat and sexually assaulted children and women in front of their bound families and neighbours. A father was also “severely” sexually assaulted and beaten in front of his family.

Once they were done, the settlers pretended to pour petrol over their victims, terrifying them that they would suffer the same fate as a horrifically-burned Palestinian youth in Ramallah a day earlier.

During the hour-long attack, the ‘settlers’ stripped and beat children, particularly girls, in front of their children and threatened to kill them and rape the families’ women. The invaders also assaulted two women, one Portuguese and one from the US, who were in the village as human rights activists. The father who was sexually attacked was bound, stripped and beaten before the terrorists attacked his genitals with clubs.

As the Canary’s Charlie Jaay reported from the West Bank:

The settlers also blindfolded activists, beat up one Palestinian man with rocks, and sexually assaulted another person. Activists were asked if they wanted their fingers cut and their rings were stolen as well as their passports, phones and money.

After the attack, because the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) blocked their access to the property, it took three hours for the first ambulance to arrive for the injured.

Israeli atrocities

The UK’s ‘mainstream’ media have completely ignored the attack – but Israeli paper Haaretz published details. One young woman told the paper:

I woke up to the settlers’ shouts. They slapped me and dragged us outside, bound us, tore off my head covering, and ripped some of my clothes. They pulled the girls out and beat them, even the little ones. They mocked us and celebrated our humiliation.

A 74-year-old victim said:

Three of them beat me hard on the head, hands and stomach. The other smashed the security cameras, the router and the lights. I started to lose consciousness.

They poured water on me, and during this time one settler stole the watch from my hand. I was sure they were going to rape me

Another, unable to walk unaided after the attack and still bearing marks from bindings, was slashed with a knife:

They came to my home, and I tried to escape, but they caught me. They cut me with a knife above the wrist and bound my hands and feet with a zip tie. They poured cold water on us and threw us to the ground while we were bound, then piled us on top of each other inside the structure, men, women and children.

The US human rights activist said:

I woke up… to my friend screaming at us to get up before immediately being swarmed and trapped in the tent by about six masked Israeli settlers armed with heavy wooden sticks. They immediately beat the three of us to the ground, smashing our faces with their fists and clubs. They zip-tied our hands and feet and were yelling things like, ‘We are going to kill you!’

Others ransacked our bags, stealing our wallets and passports. One asked me for my phone, and every time I said I didn’t know where it was – because the whole tent was a mess and I couldn’t move – he hit me in the face.

Sexual assault

She also confirmed the sexual assault on the male victim, who asked the paper not to share full details of what the terrorists had done to him:

They pulled down the Palestinian man’s pants, poured water all over him and brutally beat him into the dirt. All he could do was curl into a fetal position and scream when they beat him with their clubs. It was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.

They kept hitting and kicking all of us, but the Palestinians were receiving the most brutal blows. I lay there shaking, with my hands over my face to protect my face. [One elderly victim] was curled up in the fetal position, zip-tied, with a bleeding gash on his swollen cheek. He looked unconscious. In a whisper you could hear the kids praying. It was one of the few things that pulled me through the horror.

They screamed at us to remove our rings, saying, ‘I will break your fingers if you don’t take them off faster,’ and they kept hitting my face while I struggled to remove mine with my hands zip-tied. Every so often they asked our names and where we were from.

At first I thought [the water they poured over us] was gasoline, and the thought of being burned alive in the tent with the Palestinian family flooded my mind. Someone ripped my jacket open with a knife, aggressively cutting from my left armpit to my hip. One settler started messing with my belt, and I screamed because I thought they were going to rape me.

One of the ‘settlers’ did not even bother to mask his face. One Palestinian victim said:

He spoke in Arabic [in front of everyone including the children] and threatened that we should leave. Otherwise they would return, burn the houses, kill the children, and rape the women.

At least six people were hospitalised by the attack. After the attackers left with the village’s livestock, Israeli soldiers arrived and prevented the village’s men pursuing them:

When the army arrived, they detained us. That gave the settlers time to get away with the herd. About an hour and a half later an ambulance arrived. The army detained us so the healthy men couldn’t pursue the settlers.

Routine violence

‘Settlers’ have murdered eleven Palestinians in the West Bank since Israel began its illegal war on Iran. In 2025, the racist mobs murdered 240 people in the West Bank, including 55 children. Sexual violence by Israeli settlers and military against their Palestinian victims is common. Thousands held without charge in Israeli torture camps face daily beatings and sexual torture.

The Israeli regime is currently ignoring well over 2,000 extradition requests for alleged and convicted paedophiles. In April 2025 Shoshana Strook, the daughter of Israel’s far-right settlements minister fled to police and asked them to protect her, accusing both her parents and one of her brothers of raping her as a child, over a period of years, and filming the rapes.

Strook was found dead at her home on Sunday 15 March, a couple of days after appointing a lawyer to pursue justice. The authorities claim she died by suicide, but Strook had posted shortly before her death that:

If they tell you I committed suicide, don’t believe it. If they tell you I was involved in an accident, don’t believe it.

Israeli psychotherapist and trauma expert Dr Anat Gur, head of the Bar-Ilan University trauma therapy program, has said that she believes organised child rape in Israel is widespread:

Organized child rape is one of the most horrific things I’ve encountered. It’s likely much more widespread than we think. It’s happening in places we least expect.

Featured image via the Canary