Settlers seize a British activist; Israel orders him deported

A British activist was taken on Saturday by armed Israeli settlers at Umm al-Khair, a Masafer Yatta village in the occupied West Bank south of Hebron, shut in a shed for about half an hour and then handed over to Israeli police, his lawyer said.

Inbar Shaked Vardi, who represents the activist, Finn Joughin, said her client had joined a protective presence initiative in the village and was trying to stop Palestinian property being damaged when the settlers set on him and held him. Israeli police said they were holding him over an allegation of sexual abuse, which she rejected outright; the footage that circulated afterwards, she said, shows her client trying to protect the village during the confrontation.

Police asked a court on Sunday to extend his detention, then withdrew the request and ordered him out of the country at once. To Vardi's knowledge, none of the men who seized him has been questioned. She said the police had chosen to arrest him "despite clear documentation of the assault".

An Israeli solidarity group that works in the South Hebron Hills said settlers had been harassing Palestinians in the area and trying to take cameras and phones from the people filming, and that Joughin was grabbed and dragged off without provocation and without resisting.

The British Foreign Office said its embassy staff in Tel Aviv had taken the case up with Israel and were still trying to establish the facts.

Correction — 10 October 2026: An earlier version of this report said the complaint against Finn Joughin was made by one of the settlers who seized him. That has not been established and has been removed.