A Palestinian woman was nearly clubbed to death by a masked Jewish settler while she was picking olives, in a desperate sign of ongoing tensions between the two groups.
The 55-year-old woman, Afaf Abu Alia, locally known as Umm Saleh, was taken to hospital after being hit over the head on Sunday by a masked settler.
The brutal encounter was captured on video by US journalist Jasper Nathaniel, who was with a Palestinian farmer at the olive festival.
When the pair tried to leave, armed settlers blocked the exits. He asked Israeli soldiers nearby for help, who he said initially agreed but then got in their vehicles and drove away.
It was at this point that a settler with a club began running after him and his friend, he told The Independent: “That’s when the settlers just appear, they really came out of nowhere.
“I’m running for my life at this point ... The guy with the club was chasing me, and when I get in the car he starts clubbing it and attacking the windshield.
“Then from the car we see the woman standing there, and we honestly think he’s going to run by her but then he clubs her, and I see her knocked unconscious with the first strike, but then he hits her again after the first strike.
“It was the single worst individual act of violence I’ve seen. I’ve seen incidents where more people were injured, I’ve seen places where people were shot, but just on the level of both the woman being clubbed and the sheer number of settlers coming out and chasing, both of those things, I’ve never seen something so extreme.”
In a statement, the Israeli Defence Force said the incident was resolved after soldiers came to stop the settler.
“A report was received of disturbances that included vehicle arson and physical violence near the Shilo settlement, in the Samaria District, carried out by Israeli civilians,” the IDF said.
“Upon receiving the report, IDF and Israel police forces rushed to the scene to disperse the disturbances. When forces arrived, the clash was dispersed.”
A spokesperson for the Israel police’s Judeo and Samaria district confirmed police opened an investigation into the incident.
However, Nathaniel, a freelance journalist from Brooklyn, said no authorities showed up straight after the incident: “They did not arrive at the scene.”
He added that after the attack at the Turmus’ayya olive fields, people began to run away and once he and others got closer to a Palestinian village, the settlers stopped chasing them but set some cars on fire before leaving.
In the footage, the attacker can be seen holding a wooden stick with a knot at one end. He swings it overhead and strikes Abu Alia. She is later seen bleeding and carried into a vehicle bound for a hospital.
Nathaniel confirmed Abu Alia was recovering.
“Here’s the woman the settler clubbed, 55-year-old Umm Saleh Abu Alia. She’s up and talking,” he wrote on X (Twitter).
“She says she’d gotten in a car when she heard settlers attacking, but got back out to check on two kids who’d been hit with stones thrown by settlers.”
Since October 7, settler attacks have increased significantly.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported in 2025 that more than 3,200 Palestinians had been injured from attacks across the West Bank.
In April 2024, settler attacks were sparked after an Israeli teenager, 14-year-old Binyamin Achimair, was thought to have been killed in a Palestinian attack.
The body was found in the occupied West Bank, which prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “terrorist attack”.
Jewish settlers entered a nearby Palestinian village and set houses and cars ablaze despite a plea from defence minister Yoav Gallant, who urged Israelis not to take the law into their hands.
Last week, US citizen Kamel Musallet, the father of 20-year-old Sayfollah, spoke out after his son was brutally beaten by settlers, but died before the ambulance was allowed to reach him.
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