Settlers assassinated a Palestinian boy in the West Bank. The Israeli forces did not stop it.

A Washington Post review of exclusive footage of the attack, medical records and interviews with witnesses and first responders reveals that one of the Palestinians killed, 17-year-old Obada Saeed Abu Srour, was shot in the back by settlers, most likely. He escapes from the shooting.

At the same time, Israeli forces did not intervene forcefully, despite their obligation under international and Israeli law to protect all residents of the West Bank, including Palestinians. Visual evidence shows that soldiers and police were not photographed at the scene of death until after the attack had ended, even though forces stationed at nearby military sites were within firing distance and had a view of an earlier settler attack.

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Abu Srour, the eldest of four children, who aspired to become a policeman after finishing high school, was killed along with civil engineer and new father Moaz Raed Odeh, 29, while trying to protect the home of 30-year-old blacksmith Awad. Mahmoud Odeh from the attack. Musaab Abdel Halim Abu Rida, 20 years old, who worked in the fields and always made his grandmother laugh, was killed near Abu Surur.

Awad Odeh's house is one of the closest homes to Esh Kodesh, a small Israeli settlement located just half a mile to the south. The ongoing wave of violence in Qusra continued and haunted his family for more than a decade. He watched a settler shoot and kill his father on the family's farmland in 2017. The extremist settlers vandalized and uprooted olive groves, physically assaulted Palestinian farmers and harassed residents.

In the month following the October 7 Hamas attack, more than 800 Palestinians were displaced from their homes in the West Bank amid increasing violence by the extremist Israeli settlement movement, which has long aimed to expel Palestinians and expand the Jewish footprint in the occupied territories. . Between October 7 and January 4, more than 300 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers, a significant increase in the killing rate in the final months of 2023, the deadliest year since the United Nations began… Victim registration. In 2005.

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The Israeli army told the newspaper that the incident was “under review” and the police had opened an investigation. Israeli Border Police said the incident was under “active investigation.”

Aya, Abu Srour’s mother, remembers her warning to him on that fateful day. “He said he wanted to go help. I told him there was no need. “He said: If you die, you will be martyred.”

When Aya returned to check on her son, he was gone.

“I didn't expect to get out alive.”

A bullet fired by Palestinians toward Esh Kodesh on the afternoon of October 11 set off a deadly chain of events, a message in a settler-run WhatsApp group claimed the next day.

At around 1 p.m., a group of masked settlers carrying firearms entered Qusra on ATVs, according to Fouad Yasif Hassan, a Qusra resident and Red Crescent volunteer who was among the first to respond to the attack. Hassan told the newspaper that the settlers deliberately collided with a car in the area and started shooting at it.

More than a dozen Palestinians fled north to take cover behind a large building, away from the gunfire that appeared to be coming from the direction of Esh Kodesh towards Qusra.

According to Hassan and local media reports, the masked settlers were mostly shooting from pistols and a popular military-style M16 rifle. They left around 1:30 pm after shooting a number of residents. Hassan said that the border police and the army were present in the area and warned residents against trying to stop the settlers. Israeli officials told village residents that only police were allowed to confront the settlers.

Visual evidence shows that Israeli soldiers stationed at two military sites located between the settlement and the village had a clear view of the road along which the residents were fleeing and the building behind which they hid.

An Israeli official familiar with the October 11 incident, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly, said that the soldiers heard sounds of gunfire coming from the village and left the settlement site. He said that the soldiers reported the incident and then saw “friction” between settlers and Palestinians in the area. They called in other forces that came and separated the two groups.

But the struggle that day continued. At approximately 3 p.m., settlers gathered outside Awad Odeh's home, about half a mile from the first attack. Six armed and masked settlers tried to storm the front gate of the house while Odeh, his mother, and three young children took shelter inside, according to photos, Odeh’s accounts, and eyewitnesses.

“I saw on [security] “There were settlers around our house destroying cars and shooting at the windows,” Odeh said. “We hid in the house and they tried to enter, shooting and cursing anyone they saw.”

Odeh climbed onto the roof of his house and threw stones at the settlers, who then started throwing stones at him and shooting at him.

Odeh said: “As soon as we moved 10 to 15 meters away from our house, they opened fire on my family and wounded my daughter, and I was shot immediately after that.” “It was like an action movie. I wasn't expecting to get out alive. I've never been in a situation like this.”

A witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said that his cousin Moaz Raed Odeh ran into the house to try to save Awad’s 6-year-old daughter. Moaz was shot and later died in the hospital.

Other Palestinians fled and dived for cover amid a hail of gunfire. Abu Srour, 17 years old, was among those who did not escape. His body was found face down on top of a hill near the house he was trying to defend.

Abu Srour was shot in the back, according to the photo and medical records, which showed that the bullet “exited from the upper middle part of the chest,” which led to “bleeding and destruction of the lungs.”

At 3:40 p.m., the local Arabic-language Nablus News channel on Telegram reported that three people had been killed in Qusra.

Under Israeli and international law, Israeli soldiers have a duty to protect the Palestinian population of the West Bank. Israeli military orders specifically state that soldiers must prevent crimes such as manslaughter and intentional damage to property.

“We, as a military soldier, a sovereign, and an occupier, must protect Palestinians from settler violence,” said Uri Givati, advocacy director for Breaking the Silence, an organization of veterans that collects research and testimony about events in the occupied territories.

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The failure of the police and military to effectively respond to the violence of October 11 is clear from evidence collected by The Washington Post and shared with forensic and legal experts.

Michael Sfard, a prominent human rights lawyer in Israel who reviewed the evidence, said he has worked on hundreds of settler violence cases and calls this pattern of inaction — where soldiers and officers witness an attack and fail to intervene — documented for nearly a year. A decade – “Standing still.”

In practice, “there was a serious problem with the implementation of the law,” said Ronnie Bailey, a lawyer with the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, who also reviewed the October 11 evidence. “No doubt about it [the Israeli army] I should have stopped him. They should have been detained [the settlers] Until the police come and arrest them.”

The gunshots were from handguns, according to audio forensics expert Stephen Beck, who reviewed a Facebook Live video showing the shooting. A number of settlers were seen carrying pistols that day.

Beck and other audio forensics experts said the sounds of gunfire were likely heard at the two military sites, less than half a mile apart.

The Israeli official familiar with the incident said that Israeli forces saw a vehicle leaving Qusra with “four settlers” on board, each of them “with their faces covered.” At the same time, the forces received a report of deaths and injuries inside the village. The official said there were no Israeli soldiers at the scene when the deadly shooting occurred, but they scanned the area for evidence afterward and found bullet casings consistent with 9mm pistols.

The first available visual evidence verified by The Post of Israeli security forces came around 4 p.m., when they… They were filmed removing CCTV footage from Awad Odeh's home and handing it over to Border Police officers.

The newspaper requested access to surveillance footage. Police refused, citing the open investigation.

Qusra residents pointed to the Israeli army removing surveillance footage immediately after the attack as evidence of responsibility. “[The authorities] They came to take the DVR to hide their atrocities. “They had to hide it,” Odeh said.

The Israeli official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said of the settler attack: “The authorities generally received intelligence information, including from security forces on the ground, regarding the identities of the people who committed that crime but the authorities had no prior knowledge.” of their identities.”

The official said the attackers were not part of the Esh Kodesh Civil Defense Division — a settler unit armed and trained by the army and operating under its supervision. He said they were not IDF reservists. The Esh Kodesh Civil Defense Division, which was near Qusra on October 11 alongside IDF soldiers, declined to comment.

Esh Kodesh residents declined to comment on the violence that occurred in Qasra that day, and referred questions to a lawyer. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Police said they arrested a 22-year-old resident of the Esh Kodesh area on November 7 on suspicion of murder. A person familiar with the case, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, told The Washington Post that the arrest is connected to the October 11 attack.

The 22-year-old was detained for about 20 minutes of questioning and then released under a restraining order prohibiting him from going to two Palestinian villages and from contacting 22 people, according to local media reports and confirmed by The Washington Post. Police declined to say whether they had recommended charges against anyone involved in the October 11 attack. The newspaper was unable to identify any others facing arrest or trial.

Aya, Abu Srour's mother, says she only regrets that day once. “I wish he'd come to me at the last minute, and I hugged him. That's all.”

Imogen Piper in London, Garrett Lee and John Swain in New York, Haag Bani Mufleh in the West Bank, Alaa Alaeddin in Washington, and Jonathan Baran in San Francisco contributed to this report.