The activist says settlers really feel emboldened by the unchecked help given to them by US President Donald Trump.
Israeli troopers and settlers have harassed a Palestinian activist featured in a current BBC documentary that has obtained reward for shedding gentle on the plight of Palestinians within the occupied West Financial institution.
Because the world’s consideration has been fastened on Israel’s 18-month battle on Gaza, settler assaults in opposition to Palestinians within the West Financial institution and occupied East Jerusalem have spiked, forcing Palestinians to flee their houses. An absence of Israeli police motion has additional emboldened settlers, who cite the Torah in claiming rights over Palestinian lands.
Issa Amro, who was featured in The Settlers documentary made by British-American journalist and broadcaster Louis Theroux, launched footage on-line exhibiting how armed troopers and settlers raided his home in Hebron within the occupied West Financial institution.
Amro mentioned police additionally threatened him with arrest and advised him to not file a criticism in what he mentioned is one other occasion of apartheid imposed by Israel within the West Financial institution. Rights teams, together with Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Worldwide, have accused Israel of practising apartheid in occupied territory.
Amro added on Sunday that the Israeli settlers who attacked him a day earlier advised him United States President Donald Trump backed them. The settlers felt “emboldened due to the Trump administration’s blind help”, the activist mentioned.
Theroux mentioned he and his group have remained in common contact with Amro.
. @Issaamro who featured in The Settlers has posted movies of his newest harassment by settlers and troopers. Our group has been in common contact with him because the documentary and over the past 24 hours. We’re persevering with to watch the scenario. https://t.co/asEWKkVX5h
— Louis Theroux (@louistheroux) May 4, 2025
The BBC documentary, a follow-up to Theroux’s 2012 movie The Extremely Zionists, displays on how the scenario has advanced in occupied Palestinian territory.
Whereas conducting interviews with Palestinian and Israeli figures, the documentary explored how the settler inhabitants has grown considerably and the way new army outposts and Israeli infrastructure have expanded throughout Palestinian territories, usually with direct state help.
It delves into the spiritual and ideological motivations behind the Israeli enlargement, which has led to mass displacement of Palestinians and violent clashes, and it questions the legality and morality of the occupation as courts rule that it undermines worldwide legal guidelines and norms.
“You deliver Jewish households [to the occupied West Bank], you reside Jewish life, and this can deliver gentle as an alternative of darkness. And that is how the state of Israel was established, and that is what we wish to do in Gaza,” Daniella Weiss, a key member of the Israeli settler motion for many years, says within the documentary.
Weiss, who has loved help from quite a lot of Israeli rabbis as properly, mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “blissful” in regards to the settler enlargement. Netanyahu has opposed the Palestinian sovereignty over Gaza and occupied West Financial institution and East Jerusalem.
Settlers are Israeli residents who dwell on non-public Palestinian land within the West Financial institution and East Jerusalem. They now quantity greater than 700,000. All Israeli settlements are thought of unlawful below worldwide legislation.
Settlements and their expansions are seen as the most important hurdle within the realisation of a sovereign and impartial Palestinian state dwelling aspect by aspect with Israel.
The United Nations General Assembly final yr known as on Israel to finish its occupation of Palestinian territory. This got here months after the Worldwide Court docket of Justice (ICJ) dominated that the Israeli presence in Palestinian territory is ‘”illegal”.
Theroux himself was harassed as properly when making a part of the documentary in Hebron when Israeli troopers approached him and tried to make him depart the realm.
The harassment of Amro comes shortly after Hamdan Ballal, the Palestinian co-director of the Oscar-winning documentary No Other Land, was attacked by Israeli settlers in his dwelling within the West Financial institution village of Susya.
Armed and masked settlers vandalised his dwelling and car in late March and injured Ballal. Whereas receiving therapy in an ambulance, Israeli troopers blindfolded and arrested the filmmaker, who was later launched with out cost.
Just like the harassment of Amro on Saturday, that assault was additionally seen as retaliation for the documentary’s worldwide acclaim and its efforts to point out the struggles of Palestinians within the West Financial institution.
The incidents have additionally additional highlighted the risks confronted by journalists and filmmakers below Israeli occupation at a time when Israel has killed more than 200 media workers in the Gaza Strip.
