‘Israeli settlers set fire to my West Bank family home with children inside’
Running through his West Bank village as it burnt, Hamza Abu Jundeya watched as flames burst out of the windows of his cousin’s home.
The small village of Al-Tuba, in the southern Masafer Yatta region, was the target of a violent rampage by Israeli settlers, who set fire to homes and targeted its residents in an unprovoked attack on the night of Wednesday, 5 August.
“You cannot imagine the sheer terror, the dread,” says Jundeya, a resident of the town, whose cousin Radwan and his family were inside their home when it was set alight. “It was a harrowing night.”
Witnesses say around 40 masked and armed settlers were part of the attack, hurling stones, smashing windows, and setting fire to homes while children were still inside. Two young children and a pregnant woman were hospitalised, including eight-year-old Razan, Radwan’s daughter, who was struck in the nose by a stone, and Joud Mahmoud Awad, 10, who witnesses say was choked and kicked.
Mohammad Hesham, a local resident and activist who arrived when the town was already burning, describes witnessing a “nightmare” unfold in front of him. “We saw little children screaming, young guys also screaming. It was like a nightmare.
“You cannot imagine seeing your own house is getting burned, and to think your family are getting burned inside.”
The Israeli military says a police investigation has been opened after police “entered the area under IDF protection to collect testimonies, findings, and evidence for the investigation”, but it did not confirm whether any arrests had been made.
The last few weeks in Masafer Yatta, says Hesham, whose own home was set on fire in a separate incident in July, is the “worst time I ever remember”.
Settler violence has dramatically increased in 2026. Serious cases of “nationalistic crime” have surged by 63 per cent during the first half of of the year with 660 attacks recorded by Israeli authorities, Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Monday. This does not include many daily acts of aggression that go unreported, some even supported by Israeli troops, locals and human rights organisations say.
During Thursday’s attack, Jundeya’s cousin, 36-year-old Radwan, was in the family home with his 37-year-old pregnant wife, Rana, and daughter Razan, when settlers charged into the property and began setting it alight.
“To feel safe in your own home one moment, and the next to see gasoline being poured over your house and children, with no provocation, it was an indescribable horror,” says Jundeya.
Rana was beaten, suffering a severe head wound and two arm fractures, he said. Razan suffered a nasal fracture.
Settlers had set fire to the area of the house where the pair were located, with Jundeya fearing they were trapped inside the burning building before discovering they had escaped.
Their young neighbour, 10-year-old Joud Mahmoud Awad, was choked, kicked and dragged out of his burning home by several settlers, witnesses say. His sister had been asleep in the house, and hid in a bathroom as smoke filled her home, until the attackers left the area.
