A young Israeli settler was filmed on Wednesday repeatedly striking a dog during a raid of a Palestinian village in the southern West Bank — the second such incident in less than two weeks.
The footage shows the young man — wearing the tzitzit religious garment and black hoodie with Hebrew writing — hitting a watchdog in the Khirbet a-Rakiz herding hamlet.
A separate clip shows the same settler entering the cave where one of the village’s families lives and shoving a woman to the ground. A toddler is clinging to the woman’s leg when she is shoved, and he falls down with her.
Israel Police say in a statement that they’ve opened an investigation into the incident, adding that officers arrived at the scene, took testimonies from residents and began working to locate the suspect.
But arrests in cases of settler violence are rare and indictments and convictions are even less common, as the government faces mounting accusations of ignoring the phenomenon or even encouraging it.
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Police said an investigation was launched after another settler was filmed repeatedly clubbing a dog during a different raid of the Palestinian village of Atara near Ramallah on May 15.
תיעוד: מתנחל נכנס למערה שבה גרים פלסטינים בחירבת א-רכיז בדרום הר חברון ומפיל אישה לארץ כשלידה תינוק ובקטע אחר מכה כלב, כנראה כלב השמירה, עם מקל. היו כמה וכמה כניסות דומות של מתנחלים לבתים באותו אזור לאחרונה אבל גם בכללי – תופעה שקורית בשנה שנתיים האחרונות pic.twitter.com/aQYEBUQBC1
— Nurit Yohanan (@nurityohanan) May 27, 2026
No arrests have been made in that incident, even though Palestinians say the settler is known to residents in the area for regularly harassing them.
While settler violence targeting Palestinians has been taking place on a daily basis, footage of animals being targeted in the process has recently made headlines.
On May 17, a settler was filmed using an ATV to run over a flock of sheep owned by a Palestinian in the northern West Bank. Then too, police said they launched an investigation, yet no arrests were ever made. The government gifted dozens of ATVs to Israelis living in illegal outposts last year, and while they were presented as a tool to help settlers defend themselves, they have frequently been used in attacks on Palestinians.
Wednesday’s incident took place in the Masafer Yatta region of the West Bank, whose communities have long faced settler attacks aimed at convincing them to flee. Masafer Yatta was featured in a 2024 documentary about settler violence and Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank that won an Oscar.
Hours before the Wednesday incident in Khirbet a-Rakiz, Palestinian media reported that settlers torched a home and a vehicle in the Khirbet Masoud hamlet near Jenin in the northern West Bank.
مستوطنون يحرقون منزلا ومركبة في خربة مسعود غرب بلدة يعبد جنوب غربي جنين بالضفة الغربية#فيديو pic.twitter.com/SzwTJ0qMxX
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) May 27, 2026
No injuries were reported from the incident, as the family inside the home reportedly managed to escape in time.
There was no comment from Israeli authorities on the incident.
Palestinian Bedouin living in hamlets across IDF-controlled Area C of the West Bank have been the prime target of settler attacks, with left-wing groups saying the violence is a tool for Israel to take over large swaths of land beyond the Green Line.
Last month, the Jordan Valley Regional Council took part in the unveiling of a refurbished nature reserve on the deserted grounds of the Ras Ein al-Auja hamlet. The spring now visited by settlers was once used by Palestinians residents of the hamlet to nourish their livestock.
But the Bedouin came under repeated attack by settlers from illegal outposts that have mushroomed across the West Bank since Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught. The attacks on Ras Ein al-Auja were so frequent that the 120 families living there for decades decided to flee.
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