It’s estimated that between 1,000 and 1,200 settlers surrounded the village, and around 500 stormed it just after midday local time on Friday, blocking all the roads in the area.
According to Abu-Alia [head of the village council], the Israeli military arrived at the scene at around 3 p.m. local time, but did not stop the settlers from attacking the village. Instead, Israeli soldiers allowed them to raid homes, prevented Palestinian residents from moving around and blocked ambulances from reaching the injured, he alleged.
Israeli security forces had informed Palestinian officials that the settlers were looking for an Israeli teenager who had gone missing earlier in the day.
It’s especially sickening that the IDF not only just let’s this happen, but participates/helps it along. If it was just a civilian mob that would be bad enough, but official support makes it functionally official policy. Breaking the Silence, a site that collects testimonials from IDF vets about what really happens in OPT, has one testimony that says, “The mission there is not to maintain order; the mission there is to enforce Jewish supremacy in the city of Hebron. It’s not that we soldiers are between a hammer and an anvil, [but rather] we are the hammer being hurled at the Palestinians by the settlers.”