Israeli Settlers Turn a Palestinian Rite Into a Gantlet of Violence and Fear

The families had only just begun harvesting olives when the attack started. Clad in all black, bearing metal batons and guns, Israeli settlers materialized without warning. Ilham Al-Bazari, one of the Palestinians farming, froze. It was too late to run, she said. Her husband was shot in the leg, and settlers attacked her teenage nephew. Believing they might spare a 50-year-old woman, Mrs. Al-Bazari said she jumped on top of her nephew to protect him.

They broke her arm instead. Her cousin, Ali Al-Bazari, an off-duty captain in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, raced to help and was shot in the back by a settler. The Israeli military showed up shortly after, Mrs. Al-Bazari and other witnesses said, as her cousin lay on the ground dying. “We called on the soldiers to allow an ambulance,” she said. “But they refused.” Mr. Al-Bazari, 44, died on Oct. 7, the first person killed in this year’s harvest — the most violent olive season in recent history, still weeks from ending.

The Israeli military did not respond to requests for comment about Mr. Al-Bazari’s case or other incidents described by Palestinians or seen by journalists from The New York Times. Image Daniel Al-Bazari, 10, spraying his mother’s perfume on the grave of his father, Ali Al-Bazari, near Burqa, in the West Bank, on Wednesday. Mr. Al-Bazari was shot and killed by Israeli settlers about two weeks ago. Image A photo of Ali Al-Bazari, an off-duty captain in the Palestinian Authority’s security forces, displayed on his wife’s phone this week.

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