PETA is Silent While Israeli Settlers Club Dogs and Torture Lambs

From Chained Dogs to Poisoned Sheep: Settler Violence Against Animals

Trigger Warning:
This article contains graphic descriptions and videos of animal cruelty, including the beating of dogs, torture of lambs, and violence against livestock. Reader discretion is advised.

A Palestinian child, displaced in an UNRWA school in Jabalia refugee camp, north of Gaza City, is hugging his donkey. Photo by Eman Mohammed

The club rose and fell on Lucy’s skull with a wet brutal thud. She was chained in her family’s yard in Atara, near Ramallah. The video continued recording an Israeli settler raising the club then smashing it against the dog, there was no snarl and no lunge, just the sound of wood on bone and the low, broken whimper that followed each strike, Another dog was watching in the corner, yapping at the settler, in a desperate plea. The masked settler kept hitting with full force. Blood ran from her eyes, her fractured skull as she laid motionless, but the settler didnt stop, he hit harder. The camera, held by a neighbor, did not shake, I really don’t know how it didnt shake, were they used to seeing this brutality from Israelis? Were they in shock? I have been watching my family and friends in Gaza burn alive, forcibly starved and hollowed inside out, my body was shaking watching this savagery. I already knew it would end with another Israeli “investigation”, and nothing would happen. Not because it’s a dog, but because they do the same to humans.

Last month the same shiver went down my spine when I watched a French nun get pushed and kicked to the ground by a settler in occupied Jerusalem. Other Israelis stood there watching her being beaten. I know Israeli terrorism very well, but it still shakes me. It still shocks me every single time.

This wasn’t one disturbed man losing control, It is the occupation’s habit made visible. Palestinians have been enduring this violence for more than 78 years.

Days earlier, the same village saw settlers throwing rocks at cats during another violent raid. In Hebron, three dogs belonging to one Palestinian family were killed, some poisoned, others beaten, part of repeated assaults that also took their sheep. In the South Hebron Hills, footage captured settlers bludgeoning lambs in pens, slitting throats, then abusing the carcasses. B’Tselem has documented settlers beating livestock with clubs, slamming them to the ground, running vehicles over herds.

UN OCHA records tell the larger count: thousands of sheep and goats stolen or killed in settler attacks since late 2023. One March 2025 raid in the Jordan Valley alone took or killed over 1,400 animals. Donkeys are led away. Water troughs smashed. Grazing land turned into settler pasture while Palestinian flocks starve or scatter. These are not accidents of “tensions.” They are tools to empty land.

I remember my aunt’s goats in Gaza’s outskirts before the big assaults. Thin, tough creatures that knew every stone path. One morning after a raid we found several with broken legs, throats opened not for meat but for message. The same logic travels the West Bank hills, hurt the animals, break the shepherd’s will to stay. Livestock is not just animals, It is livelihood and memory. It is love for the land itself. Destroy the herds, and the people will soon follow.

For decades, Humans and animal rights organizations have monitored and recorded settlers poisoning grazing fields and water sources, killing dozens of sheep in single attacks. In 2005, settlers poisoned scores of sheep and even gazelles near Tuwani. In 2012, thirteen sheep died after poison was sprayed on fields near Hebron. Similar poisoning of dogs, sheep, and entire flocks has recurred in Hebron hills, Jordan Valley, and near Jericho. Donkeys stabbed to death, herds run over by vehicles, lambs tortured in pens, these tactics stretch back years, forming a consistent weapon to force Palestinian families off their land.

on January 2026: B’Tselem published videos of clubbing and stone-throwing at tied and penned animals. May 2026: Lucy’s beating, caught clearly, “investigated” by Israeli police only after viral outrage. Haaretz reported it straight, a dog tied and attacked in its yard then the army blocked its rescue by the Palestinian family.

Where are the Western animal rights organizations? PETA, loud on fur farms, circuses, and lab animals in the West, has stayed largely silent on this systematic cruelty under occupation. Protests have formed outside their offices demanding accountability. Their occasional statements speak of “animals suffer in all wars” while Palestinian pets and herds are targeted as policy extension to ethnically cleanse the humans. They have criticized Palestinians before, but settler clubs on chained dogs draw no campaigns, no emergency appeals and no boycotts.

This is the hypocrisy laid bare, when animal rights, for many Western groups, stops at certain borders and certain victims. When the beaten dog or slaughtered lamb belongs to a Palestinian under military occupation and settler expansion, the outrage evaporates. Cats thrown from heights near settlements, sheep run over by ATVs, guard dogs clubbed while chained, these images circulate on phones across the world, yet major animal rights machinery remains absent. Eastern animals, it seems, do not count the same when the hand holding the club serves a project of displacement and genocide.

The system is clear, occupation normalizes cruelty. If you feel desensitized, thats on purpose, they want you numb and hopeless. This system protects the settler who beats the dog, rarely punishes the pattern, and counts on the world to look away when the victims walk on four legs first, then two. Impunity for one feeds impunity for all.

Lucy survived after her family persisted and rushed her through checkpoints for treatment. She lies bandaged in the yard now, trembling at every sound, eyes still swollen. The yard is quieter, while the chain remains. We know that the next raid is only a matter of time.

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Sources

UN Data on Livestock Losses

• UN OCHA, Humanitarian Situation Update #272 (March 2025): Documented a single settler attack in the Jordan Valley in which over 1,400 sheep and goats were stolen or killed.

• UN OCHA regular reports on settler violence and agricultural/livestock damage (2023–2026).

Recent Incident – Lucy the Dog (Atara, May 2026)

• Haaretz, “‘He Attacked a Tied-up Dog’: Israeli Settler Filmed Abusing Palestinian-Owned Dog in West Bank,” May 16, 2026.

• The New Arab & Middle East Eye, reporting on the assault and subsequent veterinary rescue (May 2026).

Settler Violence Documentation

• B’Tselem, “Israeli settlers engage in animal brutality as part of ongoing assault on Palestinian communities,” January 6, 2026 (includes video footage of livestock being clubbed, stoned, slammed to the ground, and carcasses abused).

• B’Tselem Settler Violence Database (ongoing documentation, 2024–2026).

Historical Cases

• B’Tselem testimonies (2005): Settlers poisoned grazing fields near Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills, killing multiple sheep.

• Amnesty International reports (April 2005): Multiple incidents of settlers using toxic chemicals to poison Palestinian livestock and gazelles in the West Bank.

Related Incident

• BBC, The Guardian, and Haaretz (April–May 2026): Assault on a French nun by an Israeli settler in occupied East Jerusalem.

Additional Monitoring

• B’Tselem video archive and field reports documenting systematic attacks on Palestinian shepherds and their animals (2024–2026).