Knocks on the Door That Lit a Hell: The Story of the Terror the Abu Aisha Family Endured at the Hands of Settlers

For Yousef Abu Aisha, opening the door of his home in the town of Tal Fit, south of Nablus, was merely a response to knocking he assumed was Israeli soldiers, but the moments that followed turned into an assault carried out by five settlers, targeting him and his wife in front of their seven children, leaving physical injuries and a fear whose consequences the family is still living with.

Decisive moments 

According to Abu Aisha, the assault began when the settlers knocked on the door of his home and identified themselves as soldiers in the Israeli occupation army. No sooner had he opened the door than they sprang on him in attack, giving him no chance to close it or defend himself, while he was trying to protect his wife and children from the beating he received at the hands of the attackers.

Abu Aisha said that five settlers attacked him all at once, and that he was unable to fend them off on his own, at a time when his children were watching the assault unfold inside a home that was supposed to be their safe haven.

The attack continued for about five minutes, according to his account, but that was enough to leave its marks on the family, after his wife found herself facing the scene of her husband being assaulted, while the seven children witnessed what happened.

Abu Aisha's wife did not merely watch the assault; she tried to intervene to defend her husband, but she too was beaten and suffered a deep wound to her head.

The wife recounted the moments of the attack, seeing her husband being beaten and choked without being able to pull him away from the hands of the attackers. She said her fear for her children was present throughout the assault, for fear the harm would reach them, and that she did not at first notice the seriousness of her own injury and the bleeding from her head, preoccupied as she was with what her husband was enduring before her eyes.

The harm was not limited to the couple; their daughter Joud suffered a fracture in her foot, leaving the family to face the consequences of the assault on more than one level, between physical injuries suffered by some of its members and the harsh scenes the seven children lived through inside their home.

Since that assault, knocking at the door has no longer been a passing detail in the family's life, but has become bound up with the fear of a repeat attack, amid concerns over new assaults targeting the family and their town.

Between Life and Death

The Abu Aisha family's case comes amid assaults carried out by settlers against Palestinians in various areas of the occupied West Bank, targeting farmers, residents and their property.

On 10 October this month, three Palestinians, including an elderly man, were injured in an attack by settlers on farmers in the town of Beita, south of Nablus, according to reports on the incident.

The Palestinian news agency also reported that settlers attacked farmers in the town of Qaffin, north of Tulkarm, under the protection of the Israeli occupation army, in another incident reflecting the dangers Palestinians face while present on their agricultural land.

The effects of these assaults do not stop at direct injuries or material damage, as the case of the Abu Aisha family shows, whose attack extended to children who watched their parents being assaulted, a girl who suffered a fracture in her foot, and a family that now fears a repeat of what it endured inside its own home.

Amid mounting reports of the assaults, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Saturday, 17 October, that scenes of settler violence in the West Bank are "disturbing," pointing to footage showing an assault on an American photojournalist.

Rubio added that the United States had asked the occupation government to take measures to deter these attacks, saying Washington is deeply concerned by the circulating scenes and continues to demand that the Israeli side act to prevent their recurrence.

His remarks came after the spread of a video showing settlers assaulting Heidi Levin, an American photojournalist for the Washington Post, during an attack on Palestinian civilians on Friday that left at least two people injured, according to reports on the incident.

But for the Abu Aisha family in Tal Fit, the matter is not reduced to statements of condemnation or calls for action; the family is facing the consequences of an assault that took place inside their home, before the eyes of their seven children, and left behind injuries and a fear of a repeat attack.

As the family tries to regain its sense of safety, the details of what happened remain present in its daily life, from the wife's head injury to the fracture in little Joud's foot, down to the fear of the children who watched their parents being assaulted. These are consequences that do not end with the attackers' withdrawal from the house, but continue long after the minutes of the assault are over.