The Cork man going viral for documenting settler intimidation in the West Bank

Jimmy Ryan quit his job two months ago and has been travelling the world before he ended up in the West Bank.

Jimmy Ryan, 32, is about to set off on a cycle from Ireland to Cape Town but decided because he had "always wanted to go to Palestine", he set off.

"I wanted to see these things with my own eyes, meet with the people, and just try and understand," he said.

"I sometimes feel we can't trust everything on social media, so I thought if I could go with a non-biased opinion, chat to people on both sides of the border. I didn't really plan too much on the social media stuff."

He flew to Tel Aviv, and ended up in Irish pub with a pint of Guinness where he spoke with settlers "which was as a bit of a wild one... they arrived to the the bar with a machine gun."

After travelling to Bethlehem, he met a tour guide for the first day.

"I was kind of astonished how quickly you start seeing these illegal settlements, full housing estates that are completely illegal under under international law, but they exist everywhere," he said.

"You drive on the roads, and you'll see Israeli flags all around the place where they shouldn't be at all.

"I really wanted to go was called Masafer Yatta, I'd heard about through documentary called No Other Land.

"I went to meet the villagers, they were just surrounded by Israeli settlements from all sides. It was kind of frightening."

Violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank has reached record levels, with an average of six attacks daily causing casualties or damage, the UN has said.

The number of such attacks this year has surpassed 1,000.

Ryan met one Palestinian girl, whose bedroom faces onto a new illegal settlement, where they antagonise her, keeping her up at night.

"She would study at night and sleep during the evening after school because she couldn't sleep at night, and it just broke my heart," Ryan added.

"They said that international people coming here can be really helpful to maintain some safety from the settlers. So I was like, 'Why wouldn't I just go back and help them?'"

When Ryan returned the next day, four other foreigners were there. Settlers arrived and brought their sheep to eat on the vegetable patch of the girl's house.

"It started getting more and more contested. Like a settler kicked a woman and the IDF came down, and they do not stop anything. It's absolutely heartbreaking," he said.

"That went on for about two, three hours, and then they closed the whole thing down and called it a military zone, which was crazy. You can see the settlers directing the IDF. It's really, really disheartening."

Ryan said that the "Palestinian kids kept their cool so much" when settlers antagonise them.

In another instance over time, Ryan said he saw settlers take away access to the olive groves, and ruin crops.

"For three hours in that instance, instance like the settlers are just like casually intimidating the family, then they'll come over and they'll like stand right in front of them, then they'll walk away, the Palestinians are completely defenceless.

"I'm not an activist in any way, but this legislation to stop like purchasing and illegal settlements, we should just never been doing that anyway."

More than 2,200 Palestinians have been displaced this year alone due to settler violence or access restrictions, while hundreds more have been displaced due to home demolitions by Israeli authorities.

More than half a million Israelis live in the West Bank — excluding East Jerusalem, which has been annexed by Israel — in settlements deemed illegal by the UN under international law.

Three million Palestinians also live there.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967.

“We are alarmed by the Israeli Government’s announcement to further increase the number of settlements and outposts and open calls by Israeli leaders for revenge and collective punishment against Palestinian communities, accompanied by threats to turn the West Bank into another Gaza,” OHCHR (the UN’s human rights office) spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani said.