Thursday the 9th of January was a bad day for the community of Deir Sharaf. It started around 13:30 when masked settlers were seen from the house of a family that had already been brutally attacked in November.
From their house there’s a view of two hills and a group of settlers, between 12 and 15 individuals, were moving back and forth on the hills. They were heard screaming and seen walking and running. Some carried sticks and they often stopped to pick up things from the ground, probably stones.
At one point they split up in 2 groups and were seen hiding behind trees. They seemed to be looking at the house and it was terrifying to stand and watch and mentally prepare for them to storm down the hill and be upon the house in minutes.
None of that happened though and as we looked from the roof of the house, they seemed to be retreating behind the hills and out of sight. Not much later we heard that a group of settlers attacked people in a plant nursery and burned down their cars and wreaked havoc. We realised that from the hill we saw the settlers on, they would have had a perfect view on those buildings which are just a stone’s throw behind us, and it’s highly likely that we group we saw was the same one.