On Saturday morning, 28 December 2024, two masked settlers armed with clubs arrived with a dog at a plot of land belonging to a resident of Silwad. A farmer from Silwad, Mahmoud Hammad (69) was plowing it at the time using a mule-drawn plow. The settlers approached him, swearing and calling out: “This land is the land of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!” Hammad answered that he was just a laborer, and the settlers pounced on him and hit him on the head and other parts of his body with clubs. The beating lasted several minutes, with the settlers sitting on top of Hammad as they beat him. At a certain point, one of the settlers got up, untied the mule from the plow, and led it and another animal Hammad had brought with him south, toward the settlement of Ofra, which is about 1.5 kilometers away. The other settler got up and followed him.
Hammad immediately called his sons and followed the settlers, as both parties threw stones at each other. When Hammad’s sons and other relatives arrived, two more settlers arrived, one on an ATV and the other in a pickup truck, both masked and armed. They threatened the family members, ordering them to leave. The family members took the mule and the other animal and left.
Hammad was taken to a clinic in Silwad, where he was kept for two days for tests and observation after being diagnosed with a fractured finger, a cracked rib, and bruises on his head and various parts of his body.
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Mohammad Romaneh on 31 December 2024, Mahmoud Hammad, 69, a father of 12, from Silwad, said:
I work in agriculture, and I have a mule and an iron plow. On Saturday, 28 December 2024, I went out after dawn prayer to plow some land located between the town of Silwad and the village of Deir Jarir, east of Silwad.
I arrived in the area with the plow and mule and another animal that I use for work. After about an hour, around 7:30 A.M., two settlers showed up. They were masked and armed with wooden clubs - they covered their faces with their shirts. They looked young, no more than 25. They came running down at me from the western side of the land, climbed and jumped over a 1.5-meter-tall metal fence. As they came closer to me, they made racist slurs against Arabs and also said: “This land is the land of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob!”
I told them, in Hebrew, “I’m just a farm hand.” Right away, out of nowhere, they started attacking me with clubs on my head and all over my body. They beat me so hard that the very first blow, which hit my head, knocked me to the ground, and I was in a lot of pain. Then they kept beating me all over my body, and I couldn’t do anything except shield my head and face with my hands. They beat me for several minutes, and I felt like I couldn’t breathe at all. I was afraid they’d kill me, and no one would know, because I was in an isolated spot. The two settlers sat on me and kept beating me with the clubs, and I couldn’t move at all. Then one of them got up and walked over to my mule and the other animal, which was about ten meters away from me. The other settler was still sitting on me, and I couldn’t move. I saw the first settler untying the mule from the plow and then taking it and the other animal and walking away with them. Then, the other settler got up from on top of me and followed the one who stole the two animals.
I got up right away and called my sons and asked them to come help me. I started chasing the settlers, who were leading the animals south toward the settlement of Ofra, which is about 1.5 kilometers away.
While I was chasing the settlers, we threw stones at each other from different distances. They had a dog with them that they left outside the fences around the land when they entered. While I was chasing them, the dog tried to attack me, but I threw a stone at it, and it ran away. I continued following them until my sons and other relatives arrived, around 8:00 A.M. Suddenly, two more settlers arrived from the direction of the Ofra settlement, one on an ATV, and the other in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. Both were masked and armed with guns. As soon as they arrived, they pointed their guns at us, swore at us, and ordered us to leave. Meanwhile, the two settlers who attacked me left the area, and we found the two animals tied up. We took the animals and returned to Silwad.
I had severe pain all over my body. My children put me on one of the animals, because I had trouble walking, and took me to the clinic in Silwad. I had tests and x-rays, and it turned out I had a fractured middle finger on my right hand and a crack in one of my ribs. I also had bruises on my head, stomach, back, and legs. I’ve been kept overnight for observation.