A Dog Named Lucy Beaten. Sheep Burned Alive. Israeli Settlers Are Attacking Palestinians' Animals to Drive Them Off Their Land
As Israeli settler violence against Palestinians intensifies, settlers are increasingly and brazenly attacking and stealing livestock that many families and villages rely on.
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank – The morning Khalil Abu Ghanam ran toward his pen in al-Samu, south of Hebron, he already knew what had happened from the color of the smoke – Israeli settlers had set a fire to the enclosure. By the time he arrived, 75 goats and sheep were dead, charred inside the structure he had built as he expanded his herd, animal by animal, over the years. Security camera footage captured the attack, residents say.
Abu Ghanam did not just lose livestock. He lost the income that kept his family on their land. Today, he lives a hollowed-out version of his previous life, with nothing left to do but to start over – and slowly build his herd again.
It’s a position more and more Palestinians are finding themselves in. Across the West Bank, attacks on Palestinians’ animals – sheep, goats, horses, guard dogs – have become a documented feature of Israeli settler violence. Two videos last month – one of a settler beating a dog named Lucy and another of a settler running over sheep with his ATV and beating a shepherd – went viral. But such cases often receive less international attention than attacks on people. Still, they serve the same purpose: making Palestinian life on Palestinian land unsustainable.
The timing of many attacks is not accidental.