In West Bank, Latest Victim of Israeli Settler Violence Shocks in a New Way
Reporting from Atara in the West Bank
Cruelty has become commonplace in the West Bank, where extremist Israeli settlers beat and shoot Palestinians, steal their sheep, uproot their olive groves and torch cars and homes. The settlers, outlaws in a multitude of ways, seldom face consequences for their actions.
But even for Palestinians living under the constant threat of being attacked, some violence retains the capacity to shock.
That was the case when a video went viral that showed a settler menacing a year-and-a-half-old dog with a club in each fist — and swinging hard, beating her over the head.
In the video, the dog, a Belgian Malinois named Lucy, squeals in pain and tries to scramble away. But she had been chained to an olive tree to keep her in the shade on a hot afternoon.
What follows, recorded by the dog’s owners, a Palestinian family in the village of Atara, is extremely difficult to watch, and to describe.
Until recently, the violence in Atara had followed a more typical playbook, aimed at driving Palestinians to flee for safety — abandoning their homes, pastures and farmlands to the encroaching settlers, so that Arab spaces shrink and Jewish spaces expand.
A group of young settlers established an illegal outpost, called Kfar Tarfon, last summer about three-quarters of a mile from the Abu Rejalah family’s home in hilly Atara, north of Ramallah.
Then the settlers took an interest in the Abu Rejalah family, which is growing, and not fleeing, as the seven sons of Hassan Abu Rejalah, 50, begin to marry and have children of their own. Their expanding home, a three-story construction site, is visible from Kfar Tarfon across a small valley.
The settlers herded their sheep through the family’s small hillside plot, destroying crops, according to Mr. Abu Rejalah, two of his sons and other members of their extended family. They drove up to the family’s doorstep as if they owned the place, stealing harvested vegetables and disabling a driveway gate in plain view of surveillance cameras.
And they accused two members of the family of attacking them, according to Mr. Abu Rejalah. The family said the accusation was false. On Jan. 9, Israeli soldiers arrested his sons Ibrahim, 31, and Daoud, 26, who were beaten by soldiers, taken to an Israeli police station, imprisoned in a military prison for five days and then released without being charged, Ibrahim and his father said.
Asked about the arrests, the Israeli military confirmed that soldiers had detained Palestinians after an Israeli civilian reported that they had thrown stones at him. It did not address whether the Palestinians had been beaten. It said they were turned over to the police, who did not respond to questions about the incident.
Such experiences are all too familiar to Palestinians across the West Bank.
What was unusual was the cruelty to animals.
Last fall, a neighbor of the Abu Rejalahs’ who lives closer to the settlers’ outpost discovered a dead donkey hanging from one of his olive trees, residents said. It was cited as one of the reasons that villagers forsook the yearly olive harvest, a fixture of Palestinian life and important revenue source.
Members of the Abu Rejalah family said that on Feb. 18, they discovered a settler grazing his sheep on their property and throwing stones at another dog, Angel, a part-Malinois mixed breed. Two days later, the dog died from his wounds.
No one photographed that attack, but on May 14, when a lanky settler showed up at the family’s home and threw a stone at a window, Ibrahim recorded video from inside the house. He also called the Israeli police and Palestinian security services. Israeli soldiers soon arrived, he said, and sent the man away.
Ibrahim said that the Israeli and Palestinian officers had cautioned him: “As long as they’re around, don’t go outside.”
The same settler — whom the police said Thursday that they had identified — returned the next day at around 6 p.m. No one went outside. Two family members took out their cellphones and pressed record.
In the videos, which have been verified by The New York Times, the young man, wearing a hooded sweatshirt, holds a wooden club and is accompanied by two white dogs of his own. He paces back and forth, scanning the windows of the house. Then he walks down to the olive tree to which Lucy is chained. Nearby, another dog, Cheetah, not on a chain, is keeping her company.
Graphic footage shows an Israeli settler repeatedly beating a Palestinian family’s dog in the West Bank. The video has been edited to avoid showing the most violent scenes. (Go to the New York Times to see the video in their article.)The Abu Rejalah family (This is not the full video from the New York Times article, which they verified. This has parts of the video provided by the Abu Rejalah family and some video of Lucy being treated by a vet. This video is from The Times of Israel and Al Jazeera).
The man picks up a grapefruit-size rock and throws it at one of the dogs. Cheetah, bloodied, runs away. Lucy cannot.
The man, now holding a club in each hand, begins to beat her, hard.
The dog tries to put the tree between herself and the man. But he reaches around the tree to strike her. Seeing her wounded, he moves in.
He pummels her head, swinging both clubs. Once. Twice. Only on at least the 17th double-blow does the dog collapse.
The attacker doesn’t stop. He beats her nine more times.
Ibrahim Abu Rejalah said he called the Israeli police while the attack was still underway and was told that soldiers would be sent immediately. He said that police and soldiers only showed up days later, on Sunday.
Asked about the case, the Israeli police said in a statement on Thursday that it only learned of the incident after video of the attack went viral. It said its investigation had been “intensive,” and called on the attacker to “turn himself in, as the long arm of the police will reach him.”
In its own statement, the Israeli military added that Kfar Tarfon was an “illegal outpost” and was “expected to be evacuated.”
At the settlers’ outpost on Tuesday, two men approached by Times reporters both refused to comment.
“There’s nothing for you here,” one said in Hebrew.
When shown a still image from the video of the attack on the dog and asked to identify the attacker, the man said nothing and walked away.
The dog survived, somehow. Her skull was fractured in only two places, beneath a 10-centimeter gash, said Dr. Ashraf Shiban, a veterinarian in Rama, in northern Israel. Her treatment is being paid for by an Israeli animal-rescue group.
The dog was blinded in her left eye, but Dr. Shiban said Wednesday that she was already eating again. In time, he said, she should recover.
Members of the Abu Rejalah family said they feared further attacks from the Kfar Tarfon settlers, particularly now that they have spoken up publicly. They expressed little confidence that the attacker would be punished.
But they seemed just as disbelieving that the attack had even occurred in the first place.
“I worked for years inside Israel,” said Hassan Abu Rejalah. “Every house has a pet, a dog or a cat. They love pets.
“What would make them do such a thing, if not to scare off people?”
Fatima AbdulKarim, James McManagan and Natan Odenheimer contributed reporting.
David M. Halbfinger is The Times’s Jerusalem bureau chief, leading coverage of Israel, Gaza and the West Bank. He also held that post from 2017 to 2021. He was the politics editor from 2021 to 2025.
A version of this article appears in print on May 23, 2026, Section A, Page 9 of the New York edition with the headline: In Violent West Bank, Vicious Attack on Dog Goes Beyond the Pale
Israel’s President Excoriates Growing Israeli Violence and Brutality
Reporting from Jerusalem
Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, on Sunday delivered an unusually harsh indictment of what he described as “a terrible process of brutalization” creeping into Israeli society.
He cited examples of thuggery like a surge of “mob” violence by Jews against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and the abuse of detainees in Israeli custody.
Mr. Herzog, whose role is largely ceremonial, was speaking at an event to award the annual Jerusalem Unity Prize at his official residence. The award was established by the families of three Israelis who were abducted and killed by Palestinians in the West Bank in 2014.
“I wish I could speak today only about unity,” Mr. Herzog said before launching into a discussion of the actions taken by some Israelis that have prompted international censure and, he said, are “threatening us all.”
“There are segments among us that are barely shocked by violence anymore,” Mr. Herzog said. “Certain other segments treat it lightly.”
He warned that extremist and inhuman behavior is being normalized, and even celebrated, by some people on the margins of Israeli society and that such violent conduct was “threatening to enter the mainstream.”
Mr. Herzog also took note of the rise of gun violence within Israel’s Arab minority, which makes up about a fifth of the population. And he denounced the “disgraceful and ugly conduct by extremists against Christians and Muslims who live among us.”
But he reserved particular condemnation for extremist settlers in the West Bank, describing them as a lawless, anarchistic mob whose attacks “defile our home and depart from every basic norm — moral, legal or Jewish.”
And he excoriated what he called “brutal acts” against detainees by “a handful of people who think that detainees, those under interrogation or suspects have no human rights at all.”
Israeli presidents as a rule act as a unifying voice and avoid controversy. But Mr. Herzog appeared to be expressing frustration at the lack of limits placed by members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history.
Mr. Netanyahu himself has minimized the intensifying and sometimes deadly settler violence against Palestinians as the work of “a handful of kids.” Israeli security forces often turn a blind eye to the violence, and in some cases join the attackers in the service of expanding the Jewish settlement project.
The Israel Prison Service and other authorities issue flat denials of abuse in detention facilities despite mounting evidence of mistreatment of detainees, including sexual assault.
Israel’s far-right minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, is widely accused of encouraging thuggish behavior. He has boasted of toughening conditions for Palestinian security prisoners.
Last week, Mr. Ben-Gvir posted a video of himself taunting detained pro-Palestinian activists while they were handcuffed and pinned down to the deck of a ship. Israeli forces had intercepted their flotilla, which was aimed at breaching Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza. In the minute-long video, at least one of the detainees can be seen being manhandled by police officers.
Mr. Ben-Gvir’s actions drew outrage both abroad and at home — including a rebuke from Mr. Netanyahu, a political ally.
On Sunday, Mr. Ben-Gvir took umbrage at Mr. Herzog’s remarks, which made use of a Hebrew word that can be translated as “bestial.”
“A president of a country who calls hundreds of thousands of citizens of the State of Israel beasts is not fit to be president,” he said on social media. “Period.”
Isabel Kershner, a senior correspondent for The Times in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
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