Moad Shaban, chairman of the Palestinian Authority's Committee for Resistance to Colonization and the Wall, said settlers in outposts like Moshe Sharbit were putting Palestinian farmers in an increasingly precarious position by restricting their access to grazing lands.
“The Palestinians have reached a point where they have nothing anymore. They have nothing to eat, nothing to graze, and no water,” he says.
Ariel Moran, who supports Palestinian communities facing settler encroachment, says Moshe Sharvit's harassment has become more aggressive since Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7 and Israel began war in the Gaza Strip.
Sharvit always carried a pistol in the fields, but now he has started approaching activists and Palestinians with an assault rifle slung over his shoulder, and his threats have become more threatening, Ariel says.
“I think he saw an opportunity to take a shortcut and he wasn't going to wait a year or two to wear them down.
“You just have to do it one night. It works.”
Many families who say they fled their homes after receiving threats from Moshe Sharvit, like Aisha's family, did so in the weeks immediately following October 7.
Across the West Bank, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said settler violence had reached “unprecedented levels.”
Over the past 10 months, there have been more than 1,100 recorded attacks by settlers on Palestinians. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed and more than 230 injured by settlers since October 7.
During the same period, at least five settlers were killed and 17 injured by Palestinians in the West Bank, according to OCHA.
