A Palestinian family has described how Israeli settlers in the northern West Bank forced them to exhume the newly buried grave of an older relative, claiming it was too close to a settlement recently authorized by Israel’s government.
Mohammed Asasa said his family had coordinated the burial of his 80-year-old father, Hussein, with the Israeli military. He said the burial took place in a cemetery belonging to his village, also called Asasa, where the family said generations have been buried in clearly marked graves.
The incident last Friday illustrates the influence extremist settlers have gained during the past four years of Israel’s current government and the military’s inability or unwillingness to halt settler violence and land seizures.
Asasa said after the funeral, armed men from the nearby settlement of Sa-Nur arrived and ordered the family to exhume the body, claiming the land belonged to the settlement, less than half a kilometer away.
“While we were receiving condolences at home, some young men from the village came running and told us that the settlers were digging at the grave we had just buried at the cemetery.” he said. “When we reached the cemetery we found it filled with settlers and the army surrounded by them.”
He said the villagers decided to exhume the remains themselves after settlers threatened to dig up the grave with a bulldozer. Video showed them carrying the body from the cemetery with military escorts, with men who appeared to be settlers further uphill.
“This had never happened before,” he said. “You have no other choice.”
The Israeli military said forces responded to reports of clashes at the site and confiscated settlers’ digging tools. It said the army did not force the family to move the remains, but protected them as they relocated the body to a nearby cemetery. It did not say whether anyone was arrested.
Israel evacuated Sa-Nur in 2005, but settlers opposed to that withdrawal have spent years trying to reestablish it as an outpost. Israel reauthorized it in 2025 and reestablished it last month with a ceremonial ribbon-cutting attended by multiple government ministers. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ’s government is dominated by settler leaders and their allies.
The Palestinians and most of the international community consider all settlements in the occupied West Bank to be illegal and obstacles to peace, categorizations Israel disputes.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration has developed strong ties with settler representatives, in contrast to his predecessors.
Asasa said the sequence of events left him confused about what will happen with funerals in the future. “Are we going to go around the neighboring villages asking for a place to bury them?” he asked.
