An investigation by the BBC reveals a pattern of near-weekly attacks by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian village of al-Mughayyir in the occupied West Bank, with one incident showing teenage settlers, backed by armed adults, attempting to storm the Abu Alia family compound while Israeli soldiers stood nearby without intervening. The report highlights how such assaults, largely ignored by international media, are part of a broader pattern of settler violence that Palestinians say is tacitly supported by the Israeli military, and reflect a wider shift in control over West Bank land.

The BBC spent a week in al-Mughayyir and the neighbouring village of Khirbet Abu Falah documenting daily life under this pressure. Since occupying the West Bank in the 1967 war, Israel has built over 100 settlements housing more than half a million Jewish settlers, alongside hundreds of unauthorised outposts often established close to Palestinian homes; both settlements and outposts are considered illegal under international law. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has dismissed the perpetrators of settler attacks as a small number of "juvenile delinquents", though footage from al-Mughayyir showed older, armed settlers and a call to "expel the enemy" circulated on social media before the assault, while soldiers reportedly made no attempt to detain the attackers.