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| Ashraf Rabi on the farm where he breeds Arabian horses in Turmus Ayya. He is worried that settlers attacking the village could harm his horses. Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian |
By Andrew Roth and Sufian Taha in Turmus Ayya, West Bank. Photography by Quique Kierszenbaum
No man’s land in Turmus Ayya lies where the US flags end and the Israeli flags begin. It is a few hundred metres of soil scorched by molotov cocktails where Israeli settlers have placed a boulder to tell the Palestinian villagers: this is our land now.
On one side of that boulder are the white-stoned mansions where the Palestinian residents of Turmus Ayya live. About 80% of them are US citizens, members of the diaspora in New York, Chicago and Paterson, New Jersey, who return for the summers and bring their children here to experience Palestinian culture and learn Arabic. Many call themselves proud American patriots and fly the stars and stripes from their balconies.
On the other side is an illegal Israeli outpost of corrugated metal trailers and shacks staffed by young men who claim all of the West Bank as Jewish land.
The outposts radiate from Shilo, a hilltop settlement across the valley that has become a destination for Americans seeking Judaism’s first religious and spiritual capital before the first temple was built. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, has visited Shilo, which the UN says is a violation of international law, twice in the last two years.
The irony is not lost on people here that the US has backed settlers claiming the West Bank as theirs, and that US dollars – through Jewish charities and the US budget to support the Israeli military – have helped finance the Israeli land grab. Given Shilo’s close ties to the US, they muse that some of those attacking Turmus Ayya could be fellow Americans.
“Only in Palestine will you find American citizens invading American citizens for land,” said Yaser Alkam, a semi-retired family law attorney from Turmus Ayya who for 35 years lived in Anaheim, California. He is now the head of this village’s council. “There is no fight. One side attacks and the other side defends with the limited means that we have.”
The violence is relentless. At night, settlers roam the village in off-road vehicles and intimidate people with gunshots, screaming and shining flashlights through the windows....READ MORE https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/03/palestinian-village-trapped-surge-settler-violence-turmus-ayya-west-bank