Tell killings: Does the right of self-defence apply only to Jews?

AI Summary

A violent incident in the West Bank village of Tell resulted in four Palestinian deaths after armed Israeli settlers attacked, while two Israelis were also killed. The events highlight disputed narratives over the right of self-defense and ongoing tensions between settlers and Palestinians in the occupied territories.

Tell killings: Does the right of self-defence apply only to Jews? Ahmad Tibi on Sun, 07/26/2026 - 14:38 Armed settlers attacked a West Bank village, yet Israeli society blamed Palestinians for the violence. When self-defence depends on nationality, equality before the law ceases to exist Israeli soldiers patrol the Palestinian village of Tell in the occupied West Bank on 25 July 2026, a day after four Palestinians were killed during a settler attack on the village (Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP) On There is something remarkably predictable about the way Israeli society tells itself stories. An incident occurs, and within minutes the roles are assigned: there is a victim and an attacker, the righteous and the guilty. Only later, if at all, are the facts carefully examined. By then, public opinion has already reached its verdict. That is what happened on Friday in Tell, a Palestinian village southwest of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli settlers and soldiers killed four Palestinians after dozens of armed settlers stormed homes and farmland on the village's outskirts early in the morning. Two Israelis, a settlement security guard and an army officer, were also shot dead. The initial Israeli headlines told of an "Israeli hiker" killed in a gunfight; the words "terror attack" and "terrorists" followed within hours. The entire village was effectively put on trial before any serious investigation had begun. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); But the story did not begin with the deaths of two Israelis. According to eyewitnesses and video footage shared online, the armed settlers entered the village from the direction of Havat Gilad, an illegal Israeli settler outpost with a long history of confrontations and attacks against neighbouring Palestinian communities. One widely circulated video appears to show a settler drawing a firearm and threatening to shoot. A struggle reportedly followed, escalating into fatal gunfire. Israeli authorities have presented a different version of events. The discrepancies between the accounts underscore the need for a thorough, independent investigation, rather than the immediate embrace of a single narrative. Yet one obvious question has barely been asked: what were armed settlers doing inside a Palestinian village in the first place? Yet one obvious question has barely been asked: what were armed settlers doing inside a Palestinian village in the first place? That question challenges one of the most entrenched assumptions in Israeli public discourse: that Jewish settlers enjoy an almost unrestricted right to move through Palestinian communities, while Palestinians are expected to justify even their most basic right to live safely in their own villages. The residents of Tell did not wake up looking for confrontation. They woke up to a reality now entrenched across the occupied West Bank, documented repeatedly by Israeli human rights organisations and international observers: armed settler groups encroaching on farmland, grazing areas and, at times, Palestinian villages themselves. Yet whenever such violence ends in tragedy, the broader context disappears, and everything is reduced to a single word: terrorism. But terrorism is not an ethnic category. If armed civilians terrorise another civilian population through sustained intimidation, seeking to drive families from their land, what should that be called? Does the definition change simply because the perpetrators are Jewish? Two systems The occupied West Bank is governed by two systems of rights, and the division runs deeper than law. It separates two standards of human worth. Jewish settlers enjoy greater freedom of movement, stronger protection from law enforcement and, too often, practical impunity. Palestinians, meanwhile, frequently find themselves treated as suspects before the facts have even been established. (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({}); Jewish supremacy is often dismissed as a slogan. In practice, it is a system of rule in which national identity determines the protection one receives, the rights one enjoys and the assumptions society makes about guilt and innocence. Settler violence has become a method of ethnic cleansing. The daily campaign of intimidation is well documented: trespassing onto private land, invading grazing areas, blocking roads, uprooting olive trees, burning homes and fields, and assaulting farmers and shepherds. The objective is to make ordinary life impossible until Palestinians abandon their homes and their land. When people leave because they conclude that no authority will protect them, that is forced displacement. In official language, all of this is laundered into a bloodless word: "friction". It is the Israeli army's own euphemism for the violence surrounding settler outposts, and UN monitors likewise list "increased friction" among the pressures pushing Palestinians from their land. The consequen