In the occupied West Bank village of Kisan, where Palestinian Authority jurisdiction does not reach and Israeli military control leaves residents without legal recourse, two village founders have begun mounting surveillance cameras as a form of collective self-documentation. The cameras are not merely a security measure — they are an act of witness, a community's answer to a legal vacuum in which more than 450 reported incidents of settler violence have accumulated without consequence. Funded through a Palestinian-American initiative called 3al Ard, the project reflects a deeper truth about li
West Bank village deploys surveillance cameras to deter settler attacks
Palestinian residents report over 450 incidents of settler attacks on people and homes in Kisan and surrounding villages.
The duty of local residents to fill the gap
Mark
Why cameras specifically? Why not petition for protection, or appeal to authorities?
Mimi
Because there's no authority to appeal to. Kisan is under complete Israeli military control. The Palestinian Authority can't enter. So residents are building their own accountability system.
Mark
But won't settlers just avoid the cameras, or disable them?
Mimi
Maybe some will. But the point isn't perfect prevention—it's deterrence and documentation. A camera makes you think twice. And if something happens anyway, there's proof. Right now, 450 incidents have occurred with almost no official record.
Mark
Who's funding this? It seems like a significant undertaking.
Mimi
A Palestinian-American businessman named Bashar Masri. He's funding multiple projects like this across remote areas. He sees it as Palestinians taking control of their own security when institutions fail them.
Mark
Is this common? Do other villages have cameras?
Mimi
Masri has funded about half a dozen similar projects. It's a response to a specific problem: settlements expanding, settlers attacking, and no legal recourse for Palestinians in areas under Israeli military control.
Mark
What happens when the cameras record an incident?
Mimi
The footage goes to a mobile app that alerts residents in real time. It creates a record—evidence that can't be erased or denied. In a place where incidents often go undocumented, that record becomes power.
Mark
Does this change anything legally?
Mimi
Not directly. But it changes the conversation. It says: we're watching, we're documenting, and we're not going away. Sometimes that's the only leverage available.
The Pulse
- Over 450 incidents of alleged settler attacks on people and property have been recorded in and around Kisan, yet most disappear without official documentation or accountability.
- Because Kisan falls under full Israeli military control, the Palestinian Authority cannot enter — leaving residents in a legal void where complaints have nowhere to go and justice has no address.
- Ten CCTV cameras wired to mobile alerts are being installed by village founders Ali Faraj and Ahmed Essa, turning the community itself into the only available security infrastructure.
- The project is backed by Palestinian-American businessman Bashar Masri, who is funding similar initiatives across the West Bank to help isolated communities resist settlement expansion through documentation and visibility.
- The cameras cannot guarantee safety, but they introduce the possibility of evidence — a deterrent born not from power, but from the refusal to let violence go unrecorded.
In the occupied West Bank village of Kisan, where Palestinian Authority jurisdiction does not reach and Israeli military control leaves residents without legal recourse, two village founders have begun mounting surveillance cameras as a form of collective self-documentation. The cameras are not merely a security measure — they are an act of witness, a community's answer to a legal vacuum in which more than 450 reported incidents of settler violence have accumulated without consequence. Funded through a Palestinian-American initiative called 3al Ard, the project reflects a deeper truth about life in contested territory: when institutions fail to see you, you must find a way to be seen.
In Kisan, a village in the occupied West Bank under full Israeli military control, residents have begun installing surveillance cameras — not for ordinary crime, but to document what they describe as persistent attacks by nearby Israeli settlers. Ten cameras, connected to a mobile alert system, are being mounted around the village by founders Ali Faraj and Ahmed Essa. The system is their practical response to an institutional absence: the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction here, which means there is no official channel through which to report violence, seek protection, or expect accountability.
Over the years, Kisan and its neighboring villages have recorded more than 450 incidents involving settlers — assaults on residents, damage to homes, a slow accumulation of harm that the United Nations has partially documented and that local memory has absorbed in full. Faraj described the goal simply: to protect the village's children and residents who live in the shadow of nearby settlements.
The project is funded through 3al Ard — Arabic for "on the ground" — an initiative backed by Palestinian-American businessman Bashar Masri, who has financed similar efforts across remote West Bank communities. His aim is to encourage Palestinians to take their protection into their own hands in the face of what he calls unchecked settlement expansion.
The cameras will not stop every attack. But they will create a record — evidence that cannot be quietly dismissed. In a landscape where nearly 430,000 Israeli settlers live among approximately 3 million Palestinians, and where legal structures serve some residents far better than others, the act of watching has become, for Kisan, an act of survival.
In a remote corner of the occupied West Bank, residents of Kisan have begun installing cameras. Not to monitor traffic or deter petty theft, but to document what they say are relentless attacks by nearby Israeli settlers—incidents that often vanish without official record, without consequence, without even a name.
Ten surveillance cameras are being mounted around the village, each one wired to a mobile application that will alert residents the moment a breach occurs and capture video evidence of what happens next. The system is the work of Ali Faraj and Ahmed Essa, two of the village's founders, who see it as a practical answer to a problem that has no institutional solution. Kisan sits in an area under complete Israeli military control, which means the Palestinian Authority has no jurisdiction there. When settlers attack, there is nowhere to file a complaint that matters, nowhere to seek protection, nowhere to expect justice.
"The goal is to limit settler attacks on our villages, our children, our little ones, that live close to settlements," Faraj said. Over the past years, Kisan and the villages around it have recorded more than 450 incidents involving settlers—assaults on people, damage to homes, the accumulated weight of living next to a population that answers to a different law. The United Nations has documented some of these events. Many more have simply happened, been endured, and been forgotten.
The camera project is being funded through an initiative called 3al Ard, which translates from Arabic as "on the ground." The money comes from Bashar Masri, a Palestinian-American businessman who has been financing a half-dozen similar projects in remote areas across the West Bank. His stated purpose is direct: to encourage Palestinians to take matters into their own hands, to resist what he calls the mad expansion of settlements through whatever means are available to them.
The broader context makes the cameras necessary and, in a way, inevitable. Nearly 430,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank among approximately 3 million Palestinians. The land itself was captured by Israel in a 1967 war. The Palestinian Authority governs some areas with limited autonomy, but many villages—Kisan among them—fall entirely under Israeli military control. This creates a legal vacuum. When violence occurs, Palestinians have little recourse. The cameras are an attempt to fill that gap, to create a record that cannot be denied or ignored, to make perpetrators think twice before acting.
Faraj put it plainly: "The (PA) cannot enter here ... it is the duty of local residents to fill the gap." What he was describing is not a security system in the conventional sense. It is a community taking responsibility for its own protection because the structures that are supposed to provide protection do not exist for them. The cameras will not stop a determined attacker. But they might deter one. And they will create evidence—a record that says: this happened here, to us, and we were watching.
Notable Quotes
The goal is to limit settler attacks on our villages, our children, our little ones, that live close to settlements.— Ali Faraj, project founder
The Palestinian Authority cannot enter here. It is the duty of local residents to fill the gap.— Ali Faraj
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