Israel’s Hilltop Youth Recruits Minors to Terrorize Palestinians (with video)

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Israel’s Hilltop Youth Recruits Minors to Terrorize Palestinians (with video)
Two Israeli teenagers assaulted a 61-year-old Palestinian amputee in Masafer Yatta, with one filming the attack. (Photo: Video screenshot)

Israel’s Hilltop Youth movement recruited minors to attack Palestinians and seize land as settler violence surged across the occupied West Bank.

Reposted from Palestine Chronicle, September 13, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Hundreds of Israeli minors were believed to participate in attacks against Palestinians.
  • A recently circulated video showed two teenagers assaulting an elderly Palestinian man with a disability while filming the attack.
  • Israeli authorities knew that increasingly younger minors were joining the outposts but had failed to stop their involvement in settler violence.

Israel’s extremist Hilltop Youth settler movement has increasingly recruited minors to participate in attacks against Palestinians and attempts to seize their land in the occupied West Bank, according to a report cited by the Quds News Network.

A recently circulated video showed two Hilltop Youth members, aged 16 and 17, attacking an elderly Palestinian man with a disability.

One of the teenagers was shown beating the man with a stick while the other filmed the assault.

The attack highlighted the participation of Israeli minors in settler violence that has expanded rapidly across the occupied West Bank.

Israeli data indicated that attacks by illegal settlers against Palestinians had increased by 560 percent since 2019.

Israeli occupation forces estimated that approximately 300 minors were living in settlement outposts and agricultural “farms” and participating in attacks against Palestinian communities.

‘Vulnerable Minors’

Around 200 new settlement outposts have reportedly been established during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s current term.

The outposts cover an estimated one million dunams of land and were established as more than 100 Palestinian communities were forcibly displaced from their territory.

According to an investigation published by the Israeli outlet Shomrim, some of the new outposts have become recruitment environments for minors who have dropped out of educational institutions.

Some were classified by Israeli social services as vulnerable or “at-risk” youths.

Israeli human rights activists have long warned about the involvement of minors in settler violence.

Activist Yoram Shurak said Israeli juvenile law established criteria for authorities to intervene in the case of a “minor in need,” including a child who had committed a criminal act, lived in a harmful environment or faced threats to physical or psychological well-being.

Shurak criticized Israeli settlement councils and the Welfare Ministry for failing to address the phenomenon.

He said responsible institutions attempted to evade accountability by claiming that they did not know the minors’ identities or that individual cases were already being handled, without taking effective action.

Targeting Women and Children

Settlement councils reportedly ignored complaints involving children as young as 14 and 15 who herded sheep while carrying out acts of vandalism and intimidation against Palestinian communities.

Women and children were among those particularly targeted.

No definitive official data existed on the number of Hilltop Youth members or the minors affiliated with the movement.

However, an Israeli Defense Ministry coordinator responsible for Hilltop Youth affairs told the Knesset Education Committee in June that the movement had approximately 1,000 members.

Representatives of the Israeli Education and Welfare ministries estimated that the number ranged between 600 and 800.

An official from an illegal settlement regional council acknowledged that nobody knew the true number of minors living in the outposts.

The official said they arrived from different areas and that social workers attempted to return them to their families or established institutions, frequently without success.

Some minors lived in the outposts permanently, while others arrived during school holidays and weekends.

Most Hilltop Youth members were male and came from religious-nationalist families, although the movement also included minors from ultra-Orthodox communities.

The overwhelming majority reportedly had a history of leaving or being removed from formal educational institutions.

‘Part of Their Daily Work’

A 21-year-old illegal settler living with his wife in an outpost in the southern occupied West Bank said several minors lived on his “farm.”

The man, who had been imprisoned several times and rejected for Israeli military service, said the minors came from other areas and guarded the outpost at night while herding sheep during the day.

Throwing stones at Palestinians was “part of their daily work,” he said.

The settler claimed that they lived alongside Palestinians “who want to kill them” and declared that “God commanded us to conquer the land and inherit the gentiles.”

He added that this objective was pursued “by force as well.”

The activities attributed to minors ranged from driving vehicles without licenses to attacks classified as ideologically or nationally motivated offenses.

(PC, QNN, Israeli Media)

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