Battle between West Bank farmers divides Israel and US

US announces sanctions against three more Israeli settlers and two farming outposts. New measures by Washington and London to stop violent displacement of Palestinians. Fares Samamreh is a Palestinian sheep farmer on the South Hebron Hills. His battle with his neighbour, an Israeli settler called Yinon Levy, has drawn both the US and the UK into the dispute.

Yinon Levy was one of a group of local Israeli settlers who would regularly come to harass his sheep with their dogs and weapons, he says. Fares said when his wife then swore at him, Yinon Levy hit her with the butt of his gun. Soon afterwards, Fares and his family left their village of Zanuta. He says: “I have little kids - some of them are four and five years old” Yinon has denied acting violently towards Palestinians in the area.

He said he didn#39;t own a gun until very recently. Activists say four communities around his farm have been abandoned by residents. But he is the subject of sanctions from both the US and UK. Most countries deem the settlements, which are built on land captured by Israel in 1967 in the Middle East War, to be illegal under international law.

The settler outposts are also illegal under Israeli law. Yinon denied the allegations, and said that the Israeli government was on his side. The UK and the US say there is a threshold of evidence that must be met. Neither have made that evidence public and declined to share it with the BBC.

We sent Yinon a video appearing to show him on Palestinian land, approaching activists with a snarling dog. He said it was misleading, and that he was defending his flock. The sanctions came after a surge in violence in the West Bank, following the 7 October Hamas attacks and Israel#39;s war in Gaza. UN says violence by Israeli settlers included physical attacks and death threats.

Number of Palestinians displaced from their homes last year doubled to 1,539. One of the politicians who publicly backed Yinon in the wake of the sanctions was Zvi Sukkot of the ultranationalist Religious Zionism party - a settler himself. He said that settler violence was a #34;marginal phenomenon and that those like Levy were the victims of conspiracies. Some of those currently under US and UK sanctions have used crowdfunding to finance projects for their area.

Some of the funds raised have been used to build a new settlement in the West Bank. Others have been set up to help pay for the construction of new settlements in the area. US expands sanctions to cover several new targets, including the farm itself. The farm’s owner, Moshe Sharvit, was sanctioned along with Yinon Levy last month.

The chairman of the local Yesha (settlers) Council, Shlomo Ne#39;eman, called it #34;a disgusting phenomenon. Two sheep farmers in the occupied West Bank - one backed by a superpower, the other by the Israeli state. From Yinon#39;s hilltop farm, you can clearly see the ruins of Zanuta perched on the next hill. Many of the houses are ravaged - roofs and furniture taken by their owners into exile.

Read More