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This is a guest essay by Dory Benami, an Israeli-American writer and author of the book “Bad Jew: How October 7 Changed Everything I Thought I Knew.”
You can also listen to the podcast version of this essay on Apple Podcasts, YouTube Music, YouTube, and Spotify.
A friend I grew up with went back into the IDF reserves after October 7th. He had done his military service years earlier. Since then, he had built and sold a successful business and become a surfer. Then October 7th happened, and he put the uniform back on.
His reserve duty has taken him around the Shechem area in Judea and Samaria, where he has spent time around young Israelis living on hilltop farms and outposts. Israelis call them Noar HaGvaot (נוער הגבעות) — the Hilltop Youth.
I thought I knew who the Hilltop Youth were. I didn’t.
There are ideological activists in that world, and there are people who commit violence. But there are also boys who arrived because school went badly, home went badly, or because a remote farm was the first place anyone gave them a job, a bed, and a role.
Some are very young. Recent Israeli reporting describes children as young as 10 showing up at isolated farms after dropping out of school, sometimes without much adult supervision. Israeli security officials describe a larger group dominated by teenagers who dropped out of the education system or got into trouble with the law.
A 10-year-old isn’t working through the Oslo Accords, international law, or competing theories of sovereignty. He wants somewhere to belong.
The word “outpost” can make these places sound more substantial than they are. Sometimes you’re talking about a caravan on a rocky hill, a water tank, solar panels, a generator, rough fencing, dirt roads, and sheep — lots of sheep.
Many of the boys are visibly religious. Knitted kippahs, tzitzit, sometimes long sidelocks. They keep kosher and Shabbat. They pray and study Torah.
At some farms, a boy who has stopped going to school can become useful almost immediately. There are animals to feed, fences to repair, and work to do. He can sleep in a caravan and wake up the next morning with people expecting something from him. For a kid who wasn’t doing particularly well anywhere else, I can see the attraction.
Adolescent boys form tribes. Territory matters. Reputation matters. Your friends matter. Somebody has a problem with your friend and pretty soon you have a problem too. A fight between two people becomes a fight between two groups.
Now put teenage sheep herders in the hills of Judea and Samaria.
A boy arrives and finds work. Older boys take him seriously. Maybe a farmer trusts him with animals. Maybe a rabbi talks to him in a way nobody at school ever did. There is Shabbat dinner and prayer. There are sheep that need feeding. There is also the land.
Some boys arrive with strong beliefs. There are older activists, rabbis, and farmers with strong ideas about Judea and Samaria. A kid can arrive because he hates school and stay because he comes to believe he is doing something important for the Jewish People.
Sheep need grass and water. They move. They don’t know where one person thinks a property line ends and another thinks it begins. Jewish and Arab shepherds can work within sight of one another. Arab families say they have grazed animals on some of this land for generations. Jewish farms depend on pasture too.
A flock crosses onto disputed ground. Somebody says it shouldn’t be there. A fence gets moved. A path gets blocked. An animal disappears. Somebody gets shoved or throws a rock. Someone comes back with friends.
My friend describes a lot of it as tit for tat. That explains the pattern. It doesn’t excuse what happens next.
Jews did not suddenly arrive in Judea and Samaria in 1967. They lived in Hebron long before the modern State of Israel. In 1929, Arab rioters killed 67 Jews there and British authorities later evacuated the surviving Jewish community. Jewish communities in the Etzion Bloc were destroyed in 1948. Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria until 1967.
None of that tells you who owns a particular field today. An Arab family may have grazed that field for generations. Some Jewish outposts are unauthorized under Israeli law. There are real disputes over ownership, access, and grazing rights.
But if you want to understand the Jewish teenager, you have to understand what he thinks he is doing there. He may believe he has returned to the land of his ancestors. I understand that.
The Arab shepherd across the valley may see a caravan and a new flock on land his family has used for generations. His life revolves around the same basic things: sheep, grass, water, and access. When another flock starts using the same ground, he sees a threat to his livelihood. I understand that too.
Understanding both people doesn’t decide who owns the field. Now add adolescent boys.
This is the part I have trouble understanding as policy: If these are some of Israel’s most vulnerable kids, why put them in some of Israel’s most politically volatile places?
A boy drops out of school. Maybe things are bad at home. Maybe he has already been in trouble. He needs structure, adults, work, and somewhere to belong. Giving him sheep to care for may be wonderful. I mean that. Animals need people. They don’t care whether you were good at algebra or whether you got suspended from school. You have to get up and feed them. That can be good for a kid.
Putting that same kid on an isolated hill in the middle of one of the most contested pieces of land on earth, without enough adults or police around, makes considerably less sense to me. You have territory, religion, identity, history, and conflict. Somebody moves a fence. Somebody steals a sheep. Somebody throws a rock. And the nearest police officer may be miles away.
They’re adolescent powder kegs. What exactly do we think is going to happen?
October 7th added more anger and distrust. Soldiers can’t stand beside every shepherd and every flock. The people living there know the roads, paths, and hills and sometimes pass information to soldiers. Sometimes people take matters into their own hands. Sometimes that means violence — and it is getting worse. The numbers back that up.
According to IDF figures reported in Israeli media, there were 867 incidents classified as Jewish nationalist crime in Judea and Samaria in 2025, up from 682 in 2024. Serious incidents involving shootings, arson, and other violence rose from 83 to 128. Israeli security data reported this summer showed the increase continuing in 2026.
Israeli security officials have described a hard core of roughly 70 to 100 activists driving much of the violence and influencing a wider circle of around 300 young people. Many are teenagers who dropped out of school or already had trouble with the law.
There are adults in this world — rabbis, farmers, activists, and ideologues. Adults influence some of the kids, but the reporting also describes something that seems to have developed its own youth culture: boys influencing boys. That worries me because you can’t solve that by arresting the five guys at the top. There may not be five guys at the top.
A kid gets status from other kids. Somebody does something and tells his friends. Somebody else goes further. A group that started as a place to sleep, work, and tend sheep can become something else. Most of these kids will never become terrorists. Most will never seriously hurt anyone. But you don’t need most of them.
My answer is not to remove Jews from Judea and Samaria. I believe Jews belong there. I believe Jewish communities should be able to grow there. But if Israel is going to build there, Israel has to govern there.
I don’t understand the logic of putting some of Israel’s most vulnerable adolescent boys in some of Israel’s most politically combustible places without enough adults or police — and then acting surprised when some of them become violent. There should be more police, more teachers, more social workers, and more responsible adults — people whose job is to know who these kids are before the Shin Bet (Israel’s internal security and counterintelligence service) has to know who they are.
Protect the Jewish shepherd when he is attacked. Protect the Arab shepherd when he is attacked. If a sheep is stolen, investigate it. If somebody moves a fence illegally, deal with it. If somebody burns a car, find him. If somebody throws a rock at an innocent person, arrest him. That is what government is for.
The IDF has a different job. Soldiers are there for security. They can’t investigate every property dispute, stolen animal, or fight between teenagers. If Israel wants farms there, build farms there. If Israel wants communities there, build communities there. And if sheep and farm work are helping troubled kids, keep the sheep.
These are actual farms. The animals are real. The work is real. For some of these boys, caring for animals may be one of the healthiest things anyone has ever asked them to do. But give them adults too. The more politically combustible the place, the more adult supervision it needs. Not less.
My friend says soldiers can’t police every hill. He’s right. So police the hills better.
In May 2024, the British government sanctioned Hilltop Youth. It called it a “hardline nationalist Israeli youth group” that establishes illegal outposts and said its stated mission was “expelling all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories.”
There are violent extremists among the Hilltop Youth. Israel’s own security officials say so. But “the Hilltop Youth” is also a name for something much messier. The same label can describe a violent extremist and a 14-year-old school dropout tending sheep. Those are not the same kid. Treating them as if they are doesn’t help anybody.
I started looking into the Hilltop Youth because I wanted to understand what the name hides. I found boys — some religious, some angry, some lost, some who love the land and the sheep, some who found something on a hill that they couldn’t find in a classroom, and some who hurt people.
Israel should be able to tell the difference. When a young Arab becomes violent, we often want to know everything that came before it: his childhood, his family, his religion, his politics, his trauma, what he saw and who taught him to hate. Those are legitimate questions. Ask them about the Jewish teenager too.
Context can explain why a Jewish teenager picks up a rock without making it acceptable to throw it at an innocent Arab. Context can explain why an Arab teenager picks up a rock without making it acceptable to throw it at an innocent Jew. A kid can have had a terrible childhood and still be responsible for hurting somebody. He can have a real religious and historical connection to a place and still commit a crime.
If he commits a crime, arrest him. Then ask how a kid who needed somewhere to belong ended up there in the first place.
I don’t think Israel has to choose between Jewish life in Judea and Samaria and law and order. If Israel intends to build there, grow there and stay there, it needs both. Build the communities. Protect the farms. Police the hills. Take care of the kids.
Thank you for this article. I have not heard of the Hilltop Boys, and find this very disturbing. The government and soldiers have a lot of fronts they are fighting on. Aren't there any organizations that can take on the work of placing adults with these 'gangs'?
This is a topic for Israel to work not the UK or the EU or even the United States. Sounds like a good idea to invest in more security. 🙏