A Plea from Al-Mughayyir
Al-Mughayyir is a small Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, in the Ramallah Governorate. It lies between Ramallah, Jerusalem, Jericho and Nablus. Around 3,300 people live here. Agriculture has long sustained our families: olive, fig and almond trees; wheat, barley and animal feed; chickpeas, broad beans, peas and seasonal vegetables. The village covers approximately 43,000 dunums, while its built-up area is only about one square kilometre. It once had more than 18,000 sheep.
Over the past years, approximately 42,000 dunums of our village’s land have been taken under direct control. Bulldozers have uprooted 12,000 olive trees. Farmers have been prevented from reaching some 30,000 olive, almond and fig trees. Settlers’ sheep have grazed on and damaged 5,000 trees, while 6,000 more have been sprayed with chemicals and left lifeless.
Our farmers are denied access to the land they have worked for generations. Their fields and trees are destroyed, and fences, water tanks, irrigation hoses and other equipment are stolen. Five hundred sheep have been taken by force from their owners’ homes. Ten communities around the village, once home to 400 people, have been displaced.
Fifteen people from our community have been killed, including children and school students. More than 700 villagers have been wounded by gunfire, many of them children. Hundreds of civilians have been arrested. Israeli army raids continue throughout the day, and settler attacks take place daily. The village is frequently surrounded, with people prevented from entering or leaving. Even the one remaining road is unsafe: settlers attack civilians there, beat people and smash their cars.
These attacks take place, in our experience, with the protection and coordination of the Israeli army. The forces that should prevent violence instead enable it. Fear now follows us into our homes, onto the streets, into our fields and into our schools. Our children cannot sleep because they are terrified. Many women have begun asking to leave the village. Workers, employees and students cannot reliably reach their jobs or schools.
Many people do not know these details. Imagine a small village facing a heavily armed army and armed settler groups whose capacity for violence leaves families fearing that their entire community could be killed in minutes.
We believe the danger is greater than ever. After the killing and starvation on a devastating scale in Gaza, we fear that those who seek to remove us see an opportunity to carry out the same plans here. Unless circumstances change, we fear a morning could come when no one in our village is left alive, whether under a manufactured pretext or for no stated reason at all. We fear a deliberate choice is being made to force us from our homes or kill us.
We do not have the money, media reach or powerful voices needed to make the world hear us. But we have people like you: people whose humanity can help carry our voices, amplify our demands and defend our right to freedom, safety and a dignified life.
Occupation makes ordinary life impossible. Imagine watching an olive tree, hundreds of years old and planted or tended by your grandfather and father, torn from the earth before your eyes. Imagine soldiers and settlers entering your home and taking the sheep your family has raised for years, while people are beaten, arrested or killed in front of their loved ones.
The injustice, oppression, violence and anguish are more than words can hold. Please hear us. Please help the world hear Al-Mughayyir.
About Al-Mughayyir
Al-Mughayyir is a Palestinian farming village in the Ramallah Governorate of the occupied West Bank, northeast of Ramallah. It sits between Ramallah, Jerusalem, Jericho and Nablus.
The village covers about 43,000 dunams (roughly 10,600 acres), while its built-up area is only about one square kilometre. About 3,500 people live there.
Families have lived from the land for generations. They grow olives, figs and almonds, wheat, barley and animal feed, and chickpeas, broad beans, peas and seasonal vegetables. The village once kept more than 18,000 sheep.
The village has lost access to almost all of its land and lives under daily raids by Israeli forces, attacks by illegal settlers and road closures, its residents report. They describe this as a deliberate effort to exhaust the village until its people leave.
- Land: about 42,000 of 43,000 dunams taken under direct control; 12,000 olive trees uprooted.
- People: Israeli forces and illegal settlers have killed 15 people and wounded more than 700 by gunfire, including children, residents say.
- Coordination: residents say illegal settlers attack under the protection of Israeli forces and now arrive in military vehicles.
- Isolation: Israeli forces keep the entrance checkpoint mostly closed; the one remaining road is unsafe.
- This week: footage from 29 September–2 October shows illegal settlers burning cars at night, Israeli forces vehicles in the village, and a landowner in hospital after illegal settlers pepper-sprayed him.
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Land loss and the destruction of agriculture
Residents report that about 42,000 of the village's 43,000 dunams are now under direct Israeli control. Roughly 980 dunams (242 acres) remain accessible, and that area changes from day to day.
| What residents report | Figure |
|---|---|
| Village land originally | about 43,000 dunams |
| Land taken under direct control | about 42,000 dunams |
| Land still accessible | about 980 dunams |
| Olive trees uprooted by bulldozers | 12,000 |
| Olive, almond and fig trees farmers cannot reach | about 30,000 |
| Trees damaged by illegal settlers' grazing flocks | 5,000 |
| Trees sprayed with chemicals and killed | 6,000 |
| Sheep taken by force from owners' homes | 500 |
Farmers are kept off land their families have worked for generations. Fences, water tanks, irrigation hoses and other equipment are stolen, residents say.
The loss is more than economic. In the words of one account, a tree here is "memory, livelihood, an extension of a family, and a witness that someone was here".
Raids by Israeli forces and attacks by illegal settlers
Residents describe raids by Israeli forces throughout the day and night, and attacks by illegal settlers every day. They say the two now operate together.
Raids by Israeli forces. Israeli forces enter homes by breaking down doors, residents say. They throw tear-gas grenades inside houses while families are present and beat men, women and children during raids. Snipers take positions on rooftops.
Attacks by illegal settlers. Illegal settlers attack homes, steal sheep, graze their flocks on villagers' trees and smash cars on the road with people inside, according to the accounts. Vendors have stopped coming to the village for fear of attack.
Coordination. Residents say the attacks happen under the protection of Israeli forces. They report a recent change: Israeli forces now bring illegal settlers into the village in military vehicles during raids. When villagers try to defend homes or flocks, they say, Israeli forces shoot at them.
The UN Human Rights Office has described a similar pattern. After the 21 April 2026 killings at the village school, it reported eyewitness accounts of an armed illegal settler in partial uniform shooting while uniformed Israeli security forces were present (OHCHR statement).
Closure, the checkpoint and isolation
Israeli forces keep the permanent checkpoint at the village entrance closed most of the time and may open it for only a few minutes, residents say. They often surround the village and allow no one in or out.
Residents report the following at the checkpoint and on the one remaining road:
- Israeli forces beating hundreds of people or subjecting them to degrading treatment at the checkpoint.
- Israeli forces taking the monthly salaries of workers and employees returning home.
- Illegal settlers attacking civilians on the road, beating people and smashing their cars.
- Workers, employees and students unable to reach jobs and schools reliably.
The accounts stress that this isolation is created step by step, not a natural condition. As one puts it, uprooting "begins when the road to that house becomes impossible".
The human toll
Israeli forces and illegal settlers have killed 15 people from the community, including children and school students, and wounded more than 700 by gunfire, residents report. Some injuries led to limb amputations.
| What residents report | Figure |
|---|---|
| Killed | 15, including children and students |
| Wounded by gunfire | more than 700, many of them children |
| Arrested | hundreds |
| Surrounding communities displaced | 10, once home to 400 people |
The school shooting of 21 April 2026. Illegal settlers shot dead two Palestinians outside the village boys' school: 14-year-old student Aws Hamdi Naasan and a man in his thirties. The UN Human Rights Office condemned the killings and attributed them to settlers. Israeli forces said villagers had thrown stones at an Israeli vehicle and that they suspended a reservist, the Times of Israel reported. Illegal settlers killed the boy's father in an attack on the village in January 2019, the same report notes.
Daily life. Children cannot sleep for fear, residents say. Mothers wait at the door each time a son leaves the house. Many women have begun asking to leave the village.
Recent footage, 29 September–2 October 2026
The updated montage combines the supplied photographs and footage from 29 September–2 October 2026. Descriptions below state what is visible; attribution comes from residents or news reports, as marked.
Illegal settlers set cars on fire, early 29 September. Security-camera footage stamped 02:15 on 29 September records illegal settlers setting a parked car on fire beside a family's house. Other clips show the cars burning and residents fighting a fire with a hose. The deputy head of the village council said illegal settlers burned two vehicles and a tent, tried to burn a house, sprayed racist slogans and blocked residents from putting out the fires, Donia Al-Watan reported. The same report says Israeli forces arrested two 16-year-old boys during a raid.
Illegal settlers smash and burn a car. Illegal settlers smashed the windows of this car and set it on fire, residents say. One clip shows the car after the attack, with broken glass and burnt debris across the seats.
Israeli forces inside and around the village. Several clips show columns of Israeli forces vehicles on the approach road and in village streets. One shows a heavy wheeled loader moving with them past homes and olive groves.
Israeli forces assault a villager. A daytime clip shows a villager lying on the ground in a yard next to an Israeli forces vehicle after the forces assaulted him, residents say. The vehicle drives away and a young man comes to help.
Israeli forces stop an ambulance. A clip shows Israeli forces on foot holding an ambulance on the road beside olive groves.
A group on the road at Marj Si'a. A clip shared on 1 October, filmed from inside a moving car, shows a group of people gathered on the road ahead around stopped cars. The driver turns around and drives away. The date of filming and the identity of the group are not yet confirmed.
Illegal settlers pepper-spray a landowner, 30 September. Illegal settlers brought their flock into a villager's olive grove under the protection of Israeli forces and pepper-sprayed him in the face, according to the account given with the footage. A distant clip shows him in a blue shirt at his fence as the settlers approach. A photo shows him on a treatment bed, his face covered in cream and an oxygen tube at his nose.
Armed illegal settlers and a flock on fenced land. A clip shows armed illegal settlers in military-style clothing standing with their flock inside a villager's fenced plot, while residents stand at the fence. Another shows a large flock grazing across terraced farmland near homes.
Israeli forces handcuff a man. A photo shows a man lying face down beside a stone wall with his hands cuffed behind his back.
Sources
This report draws on the full appeal above, two written community accounts, supplied photographs and footage, and published sources. Figures on land, trees, livestock and casualties come from the community accounts and have not been independently checked here.
- UN Human Rights Office statement on the 21 April 2026 killings, 23 April 2026
- Times of Israel report on the school shooting, 21 April 2026
- Zeteo witness accounts from the school, April 2026
- Donia Al-Watan report on the 29 September attack, 29 September 2026
- OCHA: Humanitarian Situation Update #318 | West Bank, 28 August 2025