On July 11, around 30 Israeli settlers descended in broad daylight on farmland near the Palestinian town of Sinjil, close to Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. According to eyewitnesses, residents from Sinjil and nearby Al-Mazra’a A-Sharqiyyeh came out to confront them, but the settlers — some of whom were armed — were not deterred. 

They began attacking the residents, beating 20-year-old Sayfollah Musallet, a Palestinian-American known to his friends as Saif, to within an inch of his life. For three hours, the Israeli army blocked paramedics from reaching Musallet, who was later pronounced dead. Another young man, 23-year-old Mohammad Razek Hussein Al-Shalabi, was also shot dead by settlers; his body was later found in a nearby olive grove.

The attack occurred in the Jabal Al-Batin area, located in Area A of the West Bank which is under nominal Palestinian Authority (PA) control. Israeli settlers established an outpost nearby in April, rebuilding it several times after the Israeli authorities dismantled it and routinely harassing local farmers with little to no resistance from the army. 

A friend of Musallet’s, who asked to remain anonymous, was with him at the time of Friday’s attack. He described how three settler youths armed with clubs approached them on a hillside, followed by a pickup truck carrying more settlers — two of them masked, wearing military-style pants, and armed with M16 rifles — who were later seen pelting a Palestinian ambulance with stones, smashing its windshield. 

According to Musallet’s friend, the settlers were soon joined by a bigger group and began throwing stones at the Palestinians, one of which struck Musallet in the back, causing him to fall to the ground. Moments later, a settler opened fire with his rifle, causing the rest of the Palestinians, including Musallet’s friend, to scatter. 

The friend didn’t see what happened to Musallet after that, but explained that the Israeli army was nowhere to be seen. “They let the settlers attack and only came after,” he said.

Musallet had arrived in Palestine just weeks earlier to spend the summer with relatives. “He was beaten to death on our family’s land by settlers trying to take it,” said his cousin, Diana. “We demand the U.S. investigate, but we’ve seen what happens to other Palestinian-Americans killed here: nothing.”

Nestled among the rolling hills and olive groves north of Ramallah, Sinjil’s name is believed to derive from Raymond of Saint-Gilles, a French crusader who passed through the area centuries ago. Residents of the farming community, like Palestinians across the already fragmented West Bank, saw their lives further upended after October 7 amid a surge in new checkpoints and roadblocks. But Sinjil is now in a league of its own. 

Earlier this year, the Israeli army erected a towering barbed wire fence that has turned the town into an open-air prison. Built along Route 60, the West Bank’s main north-south highway, the fence has virtually sealed residents off from the outside world and severed them from thousands of dunams of farmland, while leaving those on the other side of the fence totally exposed to settler lynchings like last week’s deadly attack.

‘All of Sinjil is cut off’ 

A few days before the killing of Musallet and Al-Shalabi, +972 met Khaled Fuqaha near his home in Sinjil. An olive tree offered some relief from the sweltering heat as he and his mother sat on a couch gazing out over the family’s groves. But this year, the view has been transformed.

The stark, five-meter-high fence now cuts through the landscape like a wound, preventing residents like the Fuqahas from accessing their land and trapping them inside. “The barbs are tilted from our side so they cut anyone who tries to pass,” Khaled said. “All of Sinjil is cut off. No one can reach their lands.”

Still reeling from a settler attack months earlier that scorched their house and others nearby, the Fuqahas told +972 that the fence — part of a growing web of Israeli-imposed movement restrictions targeting Palestinians across the West Bank — has left many residents wondering if they will ever walk their land again.

According to the mayor, Moataz Tawafsha, five of the town’s entrances have been sealed off, some with barbed wire, others with earth mounds or metal gates. Only one of Sinjil’s original access points remains open, which is located near the Fuqaha family’s home; even that, residents say, is regularly locked by a heavy gate. “It’s a deliberate campaign to suffocate Sinjil,” Tawafsha told +972.

In addition to cutting off agricultural lands from the village proper, the fence has rendered at least 47 homes inaccessible, leaving their inhabitants vulnerable to settler attacks. As a result, many of those houses now stand abandoned.

Before the fence was built, Sinjil organized local protection committees to help defend residents from settler attacks, which included arson, stone throwing, and beatings. But with the fence blocking almost any access, these committees, along with emergency responders, can no longer reach the homes on the other side. “The families that did remain have had to move women and children deeper into town to protect them,” Tawafsha explained.

In total, 8,000 dunams of land has become inaccessible to its owners in Sinjil as a result of the fence. According to Tawafsha, settlers and the Israeli army had long sought an opportunity to take control over these privately owned lands — all of which has been categorized since the Oslo Accords as Area C, meaning territory over which Israel enjoys full control — and the Gaza war provided the pretext. “Since October 7, anyone trying to reach their land has been detained, beaten, or harassed,” the mayor said.

The loss hits hard in a town where agriculture is a lifeline. “Many families rely on those lands for olive cultivation,” Tawafsha added. “They’ve been cut off for two seasons now.”

Under the olive tree near his home, Khaled and his mother sip coffee, trying to hold on to a routine that once brought comfort. But they know it won’t last. “We rarely sit out here in the afternoons anymore like we used to,” his mother said. “Soldiers have repeatedly ordered us not to sit here — outside our own home.”

Her eyes remained fixed on the fence cutting across the hills. “Well,” she said quietly, “at least it’s not concrete so it doesn’t block the view of the land.”

‘A cover for land confiscation’

Palestinian-American Fuad Mashhour, 55, whose house lies along Route 60, is now completely cut off from his village. Forced to erect barriers around his own home for fear of settler attacks, he described the situation as “living in a cage.”

“You need permission just to leave,” he told +972. “Whenever I go out, the army stops me and asks where I’m going. There’s nothing we can do about it. Our neighbors have it worse: before the fence, they could walk into town; now they need a car just to buy a soda.

“The past two years have been worse than ever,” Mashhour continued. “You can’t even go up to your own roof without the army questioning why you’re there. Every day is harder than the one before.”

Mashhour explained that in order to reach town, he has to leave his car at home and walk by way of the steep hill — a 30-minute journey. “You do what you’ve got to do,” he said.

Ayed Ghafri, a local anti-settlement activist, said the suffocation of Sinjil is part of a broader Israeli strategy to annex the West Bank by isolating Palestinian villages and turning them into closed-off prisons.

“My home is on Route 60, outside the fence,” he told +972. “I face daily harassment and raids from both the army and settlers. The goal is to make our lives unbearable so we give up and hand over our homes on a silver platter.” 

Indeed, since 1967, nearly half of Sinjil’s land has been seized or rendered inaccessible by Israeli military orders and the expansion of settlements. Between February and August 2024, the army confiscated a further 45 dunams between Sinjil and the neighboring village of Turmus Ayya to construct the fence. 

The town is now encircled by five Israeli settlements and three newly built pastoral outposts, from which settlers regularly descend onto Sinjil’s wheat fields — grazing livestock where Palestinians are now barred from entering, hurling stones at farmers, torching homes and vehicles, and intimidating residents.

Ghafri confirmed Tawafsha’s observation that many residents have left their homes near the fence and moved deeper into the village. “Today, many seek safety by moving further inside the town. It’s exactly what the Israeli government wants: to empty Area C,” he said.

The core of the town lies in Area B, under the PA’s civil control but Israeli military control, where settler attacks are less common. But Ghafri warned that even this land is increasingly under threat. 

In April 2025, Israeli human rights group B’Tselem documented settlers climbing Jabal Al-Tal, a hill in Area B, and attempting to establish an outpost. When residents resisted, the settlers retaliated: chasing villagers, hurling rocks, burning a Bedouin tent compound, stealing sheep, and setting fire to a shed belonging to Ghafri’s family.

In response to +972’s request for comment, an Israeli army spokesperson stated that “in light of the recurring terror incidents in the area, it was decided to place a fence in order to prevent stone throwing at a main route and repeated disturbances of public order, thereby safeguarding the security of civilians in the region.” The statement further claimed that these measures were taken while “maintaining the freedom of movement for local residents.”

Mayor Tawafsha flatly rejected the army’s justification. “This is all a lie — a cover for further confiscation of land,” he said. “They are depriving Sinjil of thousands of dunams in order to establish a full settlement bloc on this territory.”