On Monday, 7 April 2025, at around 8:00 A.M., farmers from the village of Yatma gathered on their farmlands north of the village, after being granted permission to plow that day. The unauthorized outpost of Evyatar was established near these lands in 2021. Soldiers who were waiting in the area prohibited anyone under 40 from remaining and working on the land. They also forbade the use of animals for plowing or any spraying equipment. As a result, about 10 farmers were forced to leave without plowing their land, while the others, who met the soldiers’ conditions, were allowed to work.
At around 3:00 P.M., while 49-year-old Faruq Najjar was plowing his field with a tractor, a soldier and a security guard from the settlement of Yitzhar approached him and demanded he stop working so they could inspect the tractor. When he did, the settlement guard spoke on the phone for about an hour before announcing that the tractor would be confiscated. Najjar refused to get off the tractor, and the guard and the soldier forcibly pulled him down, threw him to the ground, beat him, hit him with rifles, kicked him, tied his hands, blindfolded him, and took him to the military base in the settlement of Kfar Tapuah.
Najjar was kept at the base, on the ground, with his hands tied, until 10:00 P.M., when he was released at the settlement gate. He returned home with the help of a passing car.
The tractor, which contained farming equipment, money, and Najjar’s house keys, was not returned to him.