On Saturday, 7 December 2024, at around 12:30 P.M., while two surveyors, N.M. and F.R., were working on land belonging to a family from the village of a-Taybah in Ramallah District, located in an area designated as Area B, four settlers, two of them armed with rifles, arrived on an ATV. The settlers advanced towards the surveyors and started attacking them using various objects: a rock, a helmet, and two pieces of a measuring instrument they stole from the surveyors. The settlers beat them both, and after N.M. fell to the ground, one of them stabbed him in the head with the measuring instrument. He bled heavily and fell unconscious. At this point, the four settlers pounced on F.R. and kept beating him. When the settlers noticed N.M. was unresponsive, they ordered F.R. to wake him up. F.R. went over to N.M., woke him up, helped him to his feet, and started walking him to the car, but on the way, one of the settlers attacked them and forcibly took off N.M.’s coat. As the two made their way to the car, F.R. dropped his keys and phone on the ground, and one of the settlers snatched them. The settlers returned the keys to F.R. and drove away on an ATV, taking F.R.’s phone with them.
F.R. managed to get N.M. in the car and started driving until he came across another car whose driver took them to the clinic in Silwad at F.R.’s request. From there, they were taken to hospitals in Ramallah. F.R., who had a broken arm, a head wound and bruises on his body, was treated and discharged at 8:00 P.M. N.M. spent that night in the hospital.
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem researcher Mohammad Romaneh on 9 December 2024, F.R. said:
On Saturday, 7 December 2024, around noon, I was surveying a plot of land along with N.M., west of the village of a-Taybah in Area B for the owners, who wanted to know its boundaries.
About half an hour after we started working there, I saw an ATV about 100 meters away from us, driving quickly toward us. I kept working, and as I was making markings on the ground, the settlers reached us. Suddenly, one of them stood in front of me and hit me on the head. It hurt a lot, and I got very dizzy. I fell, but within seconds, I recovered and got up. I saw four settlers, two of whom were armed with rifles. One of the settlers held a large rock with both hands and tried to hit me with it, but I pushed him away. Another settler hit N.M. with a helmet he was holding in his hand.
One of the settlers stole a measuring instrument that’s made of two parts, each a meter long, and hit N.M. with it. Another settler hit me on the head with a rock, and then the settler who was holding the instrument also hit me with it.
At this point, N.M. fell to the ground, and then two settlers attacked him and hit him on the head with the helmet and the measuring instrument. I saw one of them stab him in the head with the sharp end of the instrument. N.M. began to bleed heavily from the head. He collapsed and fell on his side. I thought he was dead.
The two settlers left N.M. and joined the other two who were beating me. All four kept hitting me, two with the two parts of the measuring instrument, one with the large rock, and one with the helmet. I tried to defend myself and fend off the blows with my right arm. As they were doing it, they looked over at N.M. and saw that he was lying in a large pool of blood, and one of them said in Hebrew, which I understand a little: “Don’t kill the other one,” probably meaning me. They stopped beating me, left me, and ordered me to wake up N.M.
I went over to N.M. and tried to wake him up. It took a few minutes for him to open his eyes. I helped him up, and we started walking towards my car. We’d barely walked five meters when one of the settlers came up to us, took off N.M.’s coat and took it. I kept walking with him, and as I was doing that, I looked at his head and suddenly realized that I could see his brain through the wound. I got spooked and tripped, and we both fell to the ground. I dropped my phone and car keys. One of the settlers walked up to us and took them. We kept walking until we got to the car, and then the settlers drove up to us in the ATV, handed us the keys, and left. I put N.M. in the passenger seat and drove away. On the way, I flagged down the driver of another car and asked to use his phone, and then he took us both to the clinic in Silwad in his car.