Palestinian farmers defiantly rebuild after Israeli settler attacks in West Bank

Burin, occupied West Bank – Ghassan Najjar's phone starts ringing as soon as Israeli troops enter Burin. It happens almost daily, as armored convoys weave through the village's narrow streets and soldiers fan out to close shops one by one.

Najjar is one of about two dozen farmers in the Burin Land and Agriculture Cooperative. They know they cannot match Israel's military might with weapons, so they focus on the land and maintaining their connection to it.

Beyond military raids, they face attacks by settlers – part of a wave of violence against Palestinians that is surging across the West Bank. Settlers live in outposts and settlements built on occupied Palestinian land, which are illegal under international law.

On July 13, a settler tried to drive livestock into one of the cooperative's five greenhouses. Members tried to shoo the animals out until Israeli border police arrived. Najjar recalls challenging the officers as to why a settler was allowed into land that the military had designated a closed military zone, where even Israeli citizens were theoretically banned.

The settler left in anger, telling Najjar in Arabic: “You will see.”

The next night, about 10 settlers destroyed all five of the cooperative's greenhouses, cutting through the plastic sheeting and wrecking irrigation systems. The cooperative estimates that the damage to the plastic alone amounted to about 30,000 shekels (about $10,000). Some 9,000 tomato seedlings worth 8,000 shekels ($2,670), purchased that same morning for planting, died within hours because there was nowhere to put them.

For a cooperative pooling land, labor, and produce from about 25 families, the loss goes far beyond five greenhouses. “We are talking about 25 families working in the cooperative,” Najjar said. “This is the hardest year for the cooperative. We are facing many attacks from settlers and the army.”

Just weeks later, Burin lost more than 1,500 olive and other trees, according to Najjar. Some were burned by settlers, others were cut or uprooted by military bulldozers along a local road meant for Israelis but not for Palestinians.

Neither did the wheat harvest fare better: of the 10,000 square meters (2.5 acres) the cooperative planted, 7,000 square meters (1.7 acres) were burned before farmers could harvest this summer. Today, much of Burin’s farmland lies in closed military zones – renewed, according to Najjar, every month or two. On paper, these orders are issued for security reasons to keep out settler attackers; in practice, they apply broadly to Palestinian landowners who are the ones being attacked by settlers.

The situation extends far beyond Burin. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 1,418 settler attacks this year causing casualties or property damage across the West Bank as of July, a pace that could surpass the record 1,836 attacks in 2025. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other rights groups have accused Israeli authorities of enabling settler attacks and described their cumulative impact on Palestinian communities as contributing to forced displacement.

Amid this, Najjar and cooperative members have developed what they call the “Tom and Jerry program,” named after the cartoon. “We go to the fields early in the morning,” he explained. “When the army comes, we run. When the army leaves, we come back.” Even with no planting or harvesting, they still go to the fields to drink coffee – “to tell the settlers and the army that this is our land and we will not leave it.”

Toward ‘food security’

Najjar founded the Land and Agriculture Cooperative in March 2020, a few weeks before the COVID-19 lockdowns hit the West Bank. Initially with just five members, it now has about 25, including 17 women, farming about 25,000 square meters (6 acres) around Burin.

According to him, the idea was never just about agriculture. “We are not just a cooperative that grows vegetables and sells them,” Najjar said. “For us, the cooperative is intertwined between economy and politics because everything is connected.” He described the cooperative as fighting on three fronts at once: the Israeli occupation, what he calls the “bureaucracy” of the Palestinian Authority, and the “umbrella” of capitalism and the donor structures of NGOs with their binding conditions.

Fifteen percent of the cooperative’s revenue goes back into the village, funding programs for children and women. Twenty families deemed the most vulnerable have received free vegetables. The cooperative then shifted to helping these families cultivate small plots themselves under a “don’t give me a fish; teach me how to fish” program.

“This is what real food security looks like,” Najjar said. “Those who do not eat what they grow themselves will never have true freedom.”

Before joining, new members must undergo six months of training in the political economy of the occupation and agroecological practices, including how to treat soil and pests without chemicals. Every two weeks, the cooperative meets to plan. At the end of each month, they assess what has been achieved.

Najjar says much of the vision for the cooperative was drafted in prison – what he calls the “school of the Palestinian revolution.” Two months after founding the cooperative, he was placed under administrative detention, a form of imprisonment without charge or trial that can be renewed indefinitely. He spent about a year in prison, including four months in solitary confinement. “In solitary, I thought a lot about the cooperative because honestly, you have time to think there,” he said. “I wrote down every procedure and goal – exactly what we needed.” When released, members had added two more greenhouses and brought three more plots into cultivation while he was away. “The cooperative is not ours,” he said. “If Ghassan is arrested, if Ghassan dies, if Ghassan goes away, the cooperative does not close. It is for the farmers, for Burin, for anyone who believes in freedom and food security.”

‘We would rather die on our land’

By Najjar’s count, the July attack was the seventh time the cooperative’s greenhouses were vandalized or destroyed. Asked what drives them to keep rebuilding structures that may be destroyed again, his answer is always dignity. “This is a fight between evil and good. You have to choose which side you stand on,” he said. “We chose to stand on the front lines of the struggle because this is our land. We tie our dignity to the land, and I don’t think anyone in this world can live without dignity.”

As closed military zones become the norm, Burin – strategically located between the notorious settlements of Yitzhar and Har Brakha and the Givat Ronen outpost – has seen 13 outposts established or expanded in recent months, by Najjar’s count. But as the village’s residents have shifted from skepticism toward his politics to respect, Najjar sees the cooperative’s persistence as evidence of a more fundamental victory.

“The real occupation isn’t when they set up checkpoints and invade the village,” he said. “The real occupation is when they capture your mind. When you wake up in the morning and work on your land – that is real freedom.”

For now, that resolve shows in early-morning “Tom and Jerry” trips to their land and in replacing what was destroyed, along with building fences that organizers hope will at least slow down the next attack. “We would rather die on our land than accept another Nakba,” Najjar said. “We work as a family, as comrades, and for freedom. We don’t work just for economic reasons or for ‘peace.’ I care about freedom. And when you work on the land, you feel you have freedom, even while under settler attack.”