On 25 August 2026, Israeli MK Zvi Sukkot of the Religious Zionist Party entered Madama (مادما), south of Nablus, accompanied by several Israelis and protected by IDF and Border Police forces. He had organized what he called a “memorial tour” of Palestinian villages, including Beita, Burin and Madama, in Areas A and B.

The immediate background goes back to 16 August. After the settler-oriented outlet HaKol HaYehudi reported the existence of Palestinian memorials that it described as commemorating militants, Sukkot went to the entrance of Madama and demanded that the army remove them. He said that if they were not removed, he would act himself.

The army apparently did not agree to let him demolish them. According to the IDF, Sukkot had formally requested security for his “memorial tour,” but demolition was not part of the approved plan. The IDF says it even recommended postponing the tour because of the security situation and offered instead to document/map the monuments for him. Sukkot nevertheless insisted on going. Then he did exactly what he had threatened to do: Video shows Sukkot holding a hammer/sledgehammer and striking the monument. Another person accompanying him also strikes it while Sukkot films. Israeli military vehicles and soldiers are visible protecting the group. Sukkot himself confirmed the action. His explanation was essentially: “I demanded that the army act to remove the monuments … but unfortunately they remained in place. Therefore, I came myself and acted to remove them.” He described them as monuments commemorating “terrorists” and argued that Palestinians were presenting people who had attacked Israelis and soldiers as heroes to the next generation.

The Madama monument appears to commemorate Palestinians killed during the conflict/intifada, including members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Israeli reporting specifically identifies names including Yamen Tayeb Ali Faraj and Shadi Nassar. Israeli sources say Faraj was involved in an attack in which an Israeli was killed and subsequently exchanged fire with Israeli forces; another person commemorated on the monument, Nassar, was killed after carrying out a suicide bombing near Ariel in 2002.

So there is a substantive dispute over what the monument commemorated: Sukkot calls it a “terror monument”; Palestinian/foreign reporting generally describes it as a Palestinian memorial.

Sukkot deliberately went to a Palestinian village with the stated intention of removing a monument after the army declined to do it. He used an IDF-protected visit to carry out the destruction himself, apparently outside the authorization given for the visit.

That's why the IDF is accusing him not merely of vandalism, but of exploiting military protection to exceed the agreed mandate.

The IDF issued an unusually strong condemnation of Sukkot:

It says the group: “acted deceptively and manipulatively, without authority and in complete violation of the approved framework” and began destroying the monument without authorization. Once soldiers realized what was happening, they contacted their commanders and were ordered to stop the destruction and remove Sukkot and the others from the village.

The army also says that operational troops were diverted from their normal missions to provide security for Sukkot, and that this exposed them to unnecessary risk.