Extremist settlers steal 200 goats from two Palestinian villages – report

Extremist settlers allegedly stole some 200 goats from two Palestinian villages in the central West Bank and took them to a nearby illegal farming settlement outpost, the Peace Now settlement watchdog said Tuesday.

Footage obtained by the Peace Now that was filmed on Sunday shows five Jewish youths with tzitzit (ritual fringes) and peyot (sidelocks), some of whom were also masked, driving dozens of goats down a street in Deir Ibzi.

A military vehicle carrying at least one soldier can be seen driving the other way as the goats are herded out of the village.

Sixty-five goats were reportedly stolen from Deir Ibzi and another 155 were stolen from the nearby village of Ein Arik, and herded toward the nearby illegal settlement outpost of Beit Karnayim.

According to Peace Now, the extremists broke into the goat pens while IDF soldiers were present and observing the incident, while Palestinian residents who tried to stop the theft were beaten by the settler activists and sprayed with pepper spray.

One Palestinian was detained by the IDF during the incident and has not yet been released.

Residents also reported that IDF soldiers and settlers seized the phones of three Palestinians who had recorded the incident.

The District Coordination and Liaison department of the COGAT Defense Ministry agency later recovered 35 goats belonging to herders from Ein Arik.

Neither the IDF nor the police responded to requests for comment by The Times of Israel.

“Yesterday it was reported that the prime minister called settler terrorism a ‘spreading cancer,’” Peace Now noted in reference to reported comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the severity and spread of extremist settler attacks on Palestinians.

“We must treat these terrorists like a tumor, uproot the terrorist farms and strongholds, and cut off assistance from the IDF and the security forces,” said Peace Now.

The theft of Palestinian livestock by settler extremists in the West Bank has become increasingly frequent, with the settlers entering Palestinian villages and seizing sheep, goats and cows, often claiming that the livestock in question was stolen from them.

The seizures are sometimes conducted in the presence of IDF soldiers, and sometimes with their assistance, but without court orders regarding the ownership of the livestock and almost always without the presence of police.

Extremist settlers reportedly steal goats from the Palestinian village of Deir Ibzi, July 19, 2026. (Courtesy Peace Now)

The IDF recently admitted in proceedings in the High Court of Justice that its service members are not authorized to conduct such operations and that even if there was a legal order it would be the police who would be authorized to carry them out.

The army also admitted that in the specific incident before the court, extremist settlers who set up illegal farming outposts had told the IDF officers in question to seize cattle from a Palestinian farm which they claimed belonged to them, which an IDF force did without a court order.

The theft of livestock by settlers has contributed to the destabilization of dozens of rural Palestinian herding communities since the war following the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion and massacres.

According to the B’Tselem human rights organization, 59 Palestinian communities, home to over 4,000 people, have been displaced since that date due to settler violence.