West Bank family keeps nightly watch as settler presence becomes routine
A photographer documents a Palestinian family in Taybeh using a flashlight and phone to track settlers who pass their home daily.
In the town of Taybeh in the occupied West Bank, a Palestinian family has turned to a nightly routine of watching and recording the Israeli settlers who pass by their property.
A photographer visiting the Kaabneh family in July witnessed settlers entering their courtyard and standing by the fence, trespassing on Palestinian-Bedouin land. The settlers talked on their phones and filmed the family and the activists who had come to serve as a protective presence.
When the photographer returned on Sept. 10, the family had reinforced the property with a barbed-wire fence. Settlers still circle the house every morning and evening, filming with their phones and keeping as close as possible, while activists and volunteers follow their movements.
At dusk, settlers approached again with sheep and goats. Nayef Kaabneh took up a flashlight to track them and recorded them on his phone, moving through his courtyard. He stopped to film once more, his eyes shifting between a settler on the horizon and his phone screen to make sure the recording was working.
The photographer crouched low to frame Nayef, his nephew Muhammad, and the fence against the fading sky, using a 35 mm Zeiss lens at f/1.6. The flashlight partially lit the fence as Muhammad helped spot the settlers. The resulting image does not show the settlers themselves, but suggests that something is happening beyond the frame.
Settler violence has surged across the West Bank since the start of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023, with an increase in attacks on Palestinians and repeated Israeli military raids. Settlers, emboldened by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government, have stepped up attacks on Palestinian towns and villages, harassing residents and setting homes, mosques and fields on fire.
Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and has since built dozens of settlements now home to more than 500,000 Jewish settlers, living alongside around 2.5 million Palestinians. The United Nations and much of the international community consider the settlements illegal and an obstacle to peace.
Israel's military operates throughout the West Bank, but rights groups have said it frequently turns a blind eye to settler violence. Settlers are Israeli citizens, and the defense minister recently announced plans to fully transfer law enforcement among settlers to the Israeli police.