Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has periodically condemned settler violence, while downplaying its scale. But his right-wing government has helped create the conditions for it, Stahl said, with the settler population in the West Bank more emboldened and heavily armed since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

Israel’s far-right finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of several key cabinet ministers with close ties in the settler community, has been explicit about his goal of annexing the West Bank and supporting settler expansion. Facing down growing international support for a Palestinian state, Smotritch last year vowed to “bury” the possibility with a settlement plan that would effectively split the West Bank in two.

According to Israeli campaign group Peace Now, 2025 saw record settlement expansion, further isolating Palestinian population centers. Since Netanyahu returned to power in 2022, his government has approved more than 100 new settlements, providing state funding and infrastructure to these communities. All settlements are considered illegal under international law and unsanctioned outposts are illegal under Israeli law.

Driving through this area of the West Bank, east of Ramallah, the expansion is obvious from the main roads. Small outposts consisting of just a few trailer homes and surrounded by security fences dot most hilltops. Yellow Israeli military gates that are closed at the whim of the army now sit at the entrances to many Palestinian villages. Major West Bank roads are lined with Israeli flags and slick new real estate billboards advertising affordable housing in settlements in Hebrew. And on smaller backroads, makeshift roadblocks have been put in place by settlers, blocking Palestinians’ access to land or natural resources, like spring water.

Thousands of settlers have been enlisted as Israel Defense Forces reservists since the Oct. 7 attacks and operate in the West Bank, where Israel says their goal is to provide security to residents.

“They serve now as part of the military,” Yesh Din’s Stahl said. “They don’t protect Palestinians at all.” Many of those involved in settlements pushing Palestinians “away from their land” now “do it with uniforms, so they have authority,” she added.

Earlier this year, an NBC News investigation found that since the start of the war in Gaza, the IDF had accepted wrongdoing in only a small fraction of the cases it told NBC News would be investigated across the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

“There is almost full impunity for people who harass or harm Palestinians or even shoot them to death,” Stahl said, citing Yesh Din monitoring data that shows “even if you get investigated, most likely, in 94% of the cases, there will be no indictment.”

Even as mourners gathered for Al-Naasan’s funeral procession last Wednesday there was no respite, as the Israeli military broke up the gathering with tear gas. Video shows the military storming into the village and furious mourners throwing stones at the vehicles. Asked about the intrusion, the IDF referred NBC News to the police, who did not respond to a request for comment.

The family’s matriarch, Rehab al-Naasan, has already buried her only son, Aws’ father Hamdi al-Naasan, who was killed by a settler back in 2019. Now her eldest grandson is gone too. “He had a vibrant spirit,” she said, adding: "He was always playful and joking.”

When news of the school attack spread through the village, “it felt like a fire burning inside me,” she said last week. “I knew something was wrong.”

Since her son’s death, she raised Aws and his three siblings.

“I want to keep them in my eyes,” she says. “To care for them closely, to make sure they grow up kind. May God make things easier for us.”

This area has seen almost daily attacks in recent weeks. In the nearby village of Qaryut, brothers Mohammed and Fahim Muammar were gunned down by a settler from the nearby settlement of Shilo in March. From their house on the edge of town, above terraces of olive groves, three established settlements and four more outposts are clearly visible.

On the other side of the valley, in the village of Turmus Aya, American-Palestinian lawyer Yasser Alkam pointed out broken windows and signs of a fire on a house, with the word “revenge” written in Hebrew graffiti on the wall. He said a large group of Israeli settlers had attempted to break into the house two nights before, setting a fire when they could not get in. The situation has worsened, he said. He pointed to the closest outpost consisting of a few trailer homes and an Israeli flag billowing in the wind, only a few hundred yards away.

"This is daily," he said. "They’re going to attack every single aspect of Palestinian life.”