Child Settlers as Child Soldiers: Notes From Ras al-Ein
Masked settlers with toddlers in Ras al-Ein. Photo courtesy of Mistaklim.
In Ras al-Ein, there are three guarantees: the sun will rise over the Jordan River in the morning, wild dogs will howl through the night, and every day, children will be drawn into crimes they do not fully understand on behalf of men that they will never meet.
Holding the line between settlers and villagers, our volunteers always carry emotions: rage at the brutality before us, grief for the lives being uprooted behind us, and ever constant shock at the inhumanity we witness. Men with machine guns, tanks, and helicopters are easy to reckon with and even easier to despise. But when a settler child appears outside of someone's home with a club, good people suffer another great cruelty in that they are deprived even the ability to fully hate what is in front of them.
A teenage settler armed with a club.
Children in Settler Violence
During our first cohort, our team documented children beating animals, throwing stones at Palestinian houses, assaulting volunteers, and playing key roles in some of the most notorious outposts in the West Bank. Additionally, first-person interviews conducted by our team with affected community members suggest that youth were involved in acts of violence at various villages in the Jordan valley where assault, arson, and animal poisonings took place.
A volunteer from the activist coalition Mistaklim stands beside a settler in his early teens.
Here is what we know: in 2005, the United Nations Security Council Working Group on children in armed conflict identified a list of six grave violations affecting children the most during times of war and conflict. These violations are as follows:
While almost all of these violations are regularly committed by Israeli military and paramilitary forces against Palestinian children, multiple infringements are also committed by Israeli forces against their own children within West Bank settlements.
Children who have been recruited, compelled, or groomed to serve in militant roles are not a rarity in the occupied West Bank. These "Hilltop Youth" as they call themselves, have been internationally sanctioned and are alleged to be responsible for scores of murders, arsons, and assaults committed across Palestinian territory. The Southern Jordan Valley has long been a hotspot for this sort of activity. At this very moment, the wikipedia page for the Hilltop Youth contains CCTV camera footage of young settlers trespassing in Ras Al Ein, and committing an arson in the neighboring village of Muarrajat.
In 2007, the United Nations published the Paris Principles, which sought to further analyze and define the role of children in armed conflicts. They defined a child soldier as follows:
“A child associated with an armed force or armed group” refers to any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities."
On most days, our volunteers document crimes being committed by settlers that UCPiP estimates are as young as 14 years old. On rarer occasions, settlers will also bring children as young as toddler-age to trespass in Palestinian villages and further indoctrinate them with far-right politics.
Let us be clear: under international law the UCPiP Team believes that many of the child-settlers inside the West Bank fit the criteria of child soldiers.
A Paramilitary Force in Formation
A UCPiP practitioner blocks a settler armed with a stick from entering a Palestinian property.
The presence of children in violent settler groups is not an accident. Organizations like the Hilltop Youth function entirely on the basis of being able to recruit young Israelis and radicalize them towards acts of violence. Young Settlers are typically recruited off of the streets of cities like Jerusalem, and often come from broken homes where they may already be accustomed to violence or have little other social support.
In the past, young settlers were condemned by many leading members of the Israeli establishment, including former prime minister Ehud Barak, as agents of "homemade terror." However, in recent years, these same settlers have begun to receive wide backing from security forces within the occupied West Bank, while simultaneously being encouraged by government officials to carry out attacks. In 2024, Ronen Bar, the head of the Israeli security agency wrote,
"The 'hilltop youth' trend has long become a bed of violent activity against Palestinians.” [Settlers are now] “using weapons of war. Sometimes using weapons that were distributed by the state lawfully…attacking the security forces...and receiving legitimacy from certain officials in the establishment."
As a result, young settlers from groups like the Hilltop Youth have essentially become a paramilitary force that assists Israeli expansion into Palestinian territories while simultaneously obscuring who is responsible for acts that are illegal under international law.
Weaponizing Innocence
The settler movement is well aware of the power of using minors. As one UCPiP field team member said,
"Children are being weaponized by the state. Using a Child creates an element of plausible deniability and subverts the narrative of who is a victim and who is a perpetrator. Essentially their very status as a minor is being weaponized."
One of the most common accusations that UCPiP team members receive is that they are discriminating against, harming, or engaging in predatory behavior against children. These bad-faith arguments are intended to intimidate locals and activists into silence, and shift the moral-high ground of victimization away from Palestinians and towards settlers themselves.
These techniques are regularly utilized against our team, and are a common narrative within the Israeli press and zionist organizations like Im Tirzu, whose employees regularly come to Ras al-Ein to use child settlers as propaganda tools.
UCPiP’s work in Palestine means that our field team watches everyday as young settles grow older and their empathy slowly drains. Our team knows that all humans, but most of all children, aren't meant for lives of hatred.
A young settler with his sheep.
As another UCPiP field team member reflected,
"It's hard to hate children who have not been given a model of how to be a compassionate functioning member of society. The way that they are learning to be human beings is by harassing, violating, and terrorizing the sanctity of human life. "
Yet, while our team will continue to endeavor to recognize the ways in which these youth are being weaponized, abused, and stripped of their humanity, we must also recognize that they are one of the tools by which Palestinians are being terrorized, ethnically cleansed, and murdered every single day.
At the end of the line, when the smoke settles, and the atrocities are counted, there will be many types of victims, and just as many perpetrators. But in this conflict, while the innocence of settler children is surely counted amongst the casualties, it is Palestinians who continue to pay the ultimate price.