UN condemns settlers’ grave exhumation demand in West Bank village

The grave of Hussein Asasa had barely been covered when settlers arrived in Asasa village near Jenin and demanded it be opened again. His family said the 80-year-old had died of natural causes on Friday, May 9, and was buried that evening with the permits they said were required from the Israeli military, only for the burial to turn into a confrontation over his body.

Family members said settlers ordered them to exhume the grave and threatened to bring a bulldozer if they did not do it themselves. They said the settlers argued that the burial was too close to Sa-Nur, a settlement re-established by Israel’s government near Jenin. The family also said the confrontation unfolded under military protection and that stones were thrown during the episode.

The Israeli military said it had coordinated the funeral and did not instruct the family to rebury the body. It said soldiers were sent to the scene after a report of a confrontation with settlers, confiscated digging tools and remained there to prevent further friction. The military said it condemns actions that violate the dignity of the living and the deceased.

Ajith Sunghay of the UN Human Rights Office called the episode “appalling” and “emblematic of the dehumanisation of Palestinians.” His response landed in a West Bank landscape already shaped by intensifying settlement expansion, repeated violence and a growing struggle over land, movement and even burial rights.

Sa-Nur has become a symbol of that pressure. It was one of 19 settlements evacuated under Israel’s 2005 disengagement plan, which also removed settlers and troops from Gaza. Israel approved its re-establishment in 2025, and construction has advanced rapidly, according to Peace Now. In April, Israeli ministers publicly celebrated the move, and Peace Now said 126 housing units in Sa-Nur were among 643 West Bank units moving forward at the end of the month.

The broader toll has been severe. In March, the UN Human Rights Office said Israel had accelerated unlawful settlement expansion and annexation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, forcibly displacing more than 36,000 Palestinians in the previous 12 months. It documented 1,732 settler-violence incidents that caused casualties or property damage, up from 1,400 in the previous period, and said October 2025 brought 42 settler attacks injuring 131 Palestinians, the highest monthly total since 2006. UN experts also said in July 2025 that settler violence and Israeli security-force actions had caused an estimated $76 million in direct agricultural damage in the West Bank since October 7, 2023, while the Palestinian Authority’s Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said settlers have killed at least 50 Palestinians since that date, including 15 in 2026.