A Nelson, B.C., woman says she was assaulted by Israeli settlers while defending Palestinians in the West Bank.
The woman and three other Italian men were allegedly attacked Nov. 30 in the village Duyuk, where they were serving as unarmed civilian protection for Palestinians against Israeli settlers.
The woman, who is recovering in the capital of Ramallah, spoke to the Nelson Star on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal while she remains in the region.
She said the group had just fallen asleep when at 4 a.m. they were woken by a knock on the door and a call to the Italians. A group of 10 men entered the house and began beating the woman and Italians. She was kicked in the face, ribs, thigh and hip, and suffered a concussion while another was repeatedly kicked in the groin.
“We were beaten for 15 minutes, and their only goal was to try to intimidate us. They told us we were leaving, we were not to be there and we were not to come back.”
The men, two of whom were allegedly armed with assault rifles, also stole the group’s possessions. Before they left, the assailants poured what they said was a fire accelerant on the victims and threatened to light the house on fire.
The attack was previously reported by CBC and The Guardian, but it has not been disclosed until now that the woman is a Nelson resident.
Global Affairs Canada, the federal agency responsible for foreign policy, said in a statement it was aware of the incident.
“Canada strongly condemns the violent acts committed by extremist settlers and opposes any actions or talk about annexation of the Palestinian territories. Under international law, civilians must be protected. We also reiterate our position that Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank are illegal under international law.”
The region known as West Bank is among the most violent in the world.
Although it is occupied by Palestinians, Israel argues it has a right to settle the land after it annexed West Bank during the 1967 Arab-Israel War.
In 2024, the United Nations’ International Court of Justice issued a non-binding opinion that Israel’s West Bank settlement policies violate international law, which is a position Canada supports.
But incidents of settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank have increased since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel that led to the invasion of Gaza. The U.N. said in a Dec. 5 update there have been 1,680 settler attacks that have caused casualties or property damage in more than 270 West Bank communities in 2025, which is an average of five per day.
That included a record 264 attacks in October, the most in one month since the U.N. began tracking incidents in 2006.
The U.N. has also noted that Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) operations are triggering displacements, school closures, restricted civilian movement and basic service disruptions.
The Nelson woman arrived in the West Bank at the end of September with the group Faz3a, which provides unarmed civilian protection for Palestinians. A local environmental activist, she was emboldened to defend Palestinians because she saw parallels between their plight and that of Indigenous peoples in Canada.
“If I am going to fight for land back in my own country, that means land back everywhere including here in Palestine.”
Nelson’s Randy Janzen is a retired Selkirk College professor who practices unarmed civilian protection, which relies on de-escalation, relationship building and mediation to protect civilians. He’s been to West Bank several times, and said Palestinians are grateful to have international observers present.
“It’s a very strong kind of resounding widespread call, and it comes out all the time when we’re talking. ‘We need you. We want you. We want your support.’”
Janzen and the group Nonviolence International submitted a report to the U.N. last year that recommends deploying at least 100 experienced, unarmed civilians to West Bank and East Jerusalem, and eventually into Gaza as well.
Despite the dangerous nature of the work, Janzen says non-violent intervention shows impacted peoples they have not been forgotten by the international community. Those who take up the role of unarmed civilian protection, he added, should be as lauded for their courage and service as nations do for their soldiers.
“I would say that in the case of [the Nelson woman] and others who do that work, it’s for greater humanity. It’s not for national security, it’s for human security.”
The woman meanwhile plans to return to Duyuk once she has recovered, and stay there until her visa expires at the end of December. She downplayed the assault, which she said doesn’t compare to what goes unreported daily in West Bank.
“If it had been Palestinians in that house, it would have been so much worse. They might have killed them. What happened to us is literally nothing on the scale of what is happening to Palestinians every second of every day here.”
She also criticized the Canadian government for what she says is its continued support of Israel’s military.
The federal government, which does not sell arms but does regulate sales by private companies, announced in January 2024 it would not allow military shipments to Israel that could be used in Gaza.
But a CBC report in July found Canadian products described by the Israeli government as military weapon parts and ammunition are still being sent to the country. Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand later disputed the report.
The Nelson woman said Canada and other countries that allow Israeli incursion into West Bank undermine the work done by unarmed civilians, even though she remains committed to the role.
“The absolute impunity that we’ve given the Israeli government, the IDF and the settlers to act with has definitely brought into question whether protective presence is effective.”