The impact of rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank through one boy’s story

In a carpentry shop in the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Noor Assi is at work packaging a wooden table. He tears off strips of tape, tying it to padded cardboard, before flipping the table on its side.

He says he is 15 “and a half,” a measurement in age split between the innocence of youth and a desire for manhood.

The war in Gaza has caused tensions to flare across the Middle East, especially in places like the West Bank. The Israeli-occupied territory is the most violent it has been in decades. United Nations figures say that almost 700 Palestinians in the area have been killed, either by Israeli forces or settlers, in the past year. Noor’s father was among those fatally shot.

“My childhood is gone,” Noor says. He was forced to grow up by a grim rite of passage.

On Dec. 2, Israeli settlers raided his village in the central West Bank and shot his father, Ahmed Assi, dead, according to the family, residents and local officials.

The Israeli military told NPR that they responded to a physical confrontation between Palestinians and Israeli citizens in Qarawat Bani Hassan with riot disposal means and live fire and that the circumstances of Assi’s death were still under review.

Ahmed Assi’s mother, Noor’s grandmother, shows bloodied clothes and a sweatshirt with a single bullet hole in the back. Assi’s 5-year-old daughter, Jenna, looks on, wearing a necklace with a picture of her dead dad.

“When my father was martyred, I started to work, I took over my father’s profession, I started working and spending on the house. I was smart and managed things, meaning I became responsible for the house,” Noor says.

Noor dropped out of school, working full time in the family’s carpentry warehouse, sometimes for 13 hours a day, to provide for his five siblings.

“I am responsible for them now. I take care of them and whatever they want, I get them. I don’t let them want for anything.”

Noor looks young, is shy and has a boyish haircut — long on top, a fade on the sides and back. He maintains his look with regular visits to the village barbershop.

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