“They [Israelis] attack us without provocation, and when the young [Palestinian] people go to defend women and children, they are shot by the army. The bitter truth is that the world is watching the bloodshed of the Palestinian people without doing anything about it.”

Mourners carry the bodies of men killed during an attack by Israeli settlers in Kafr Malik. Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

‘They attack us without provocation’: West Bank town mourns its dead after settler raid

Sense of helplessness pervades Kafr Malik where IDF killed three Palestinians after locals resisted masked marauders

Julian Borger and Sufian Taha in Kafr Malik

Thu 26 Jun 2025 12.09 EDT

The men from Fatah arrived on Thursday morning, hours after the attack on Kafr Malik, to put out more flags along the main streets, adding bright primary colours to a mournful scene, but they did nothing to relieve the all-encompassing sense of helplessness.

Three men from this central West Bank town, one a teenager, lay dead and several others were still in hospital after an attack by about 100 Israeli settlers on Wednesday evening. The men of Kafr Malik had run to its south-western edge to form a screen against the settlers and rescue women and children trapped in a house set alight by the masked attackers.

But as they threw stones at the settlers in an attempt to drive them back, the Israel army, who had taken up position behind the marauders, opened fire at the Palestinians.

“Their own kids are really valuable to them but other people’s kids are worthless,” said Mohammed Sabry, his eyes swollen from a night of weeping. His 18-year-old son, Lutfi, was one of the dead.

“There is no justification whatsoever to shed the blood of the Palestinian people like this,” Sabry said. “They attack us without provocation, and when the young people go to defend women and children, they are shot by the army. The bitter truth is that the world is watching the bloodshed of the Palestinian people without doing anything about it.”

Afi Hamayel has the misfortune to own a house on the south-east edge of town and it took the brunt of the settler attack. “They threw petrol bombs into my car and then through the window into the house,” Hayamel said as friends helped him remove charred personal effects from the house.

Hamayel’s extended family, including his own six children – 20 people altogether – had taken shelter in the house as the attack began. When it began to burn, a neighbour ran down the hillside to help them escape.

“He was helping me evacuate the children. He took them to his house and he was coming back when the army shot him in the head,” he said. The neighbour, 35, was listed as one of the three killed on Wednesday.... READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/26/west-bank-town-kafr-malik-mourns-its-dead-israeli-settler-attack?CMP=GTUK_email

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