ISRAELI SETTLERS ATTACK FOREIGN VOLUNTEERS

The Middle East Monitor reported that Haaretz displayed a video of a group of foreign volunteers assisting Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank were assaulted by Israeli settlers yesterday using stones, batons and iron rods. Local Palestinian sources said that the attack occurred in the town of Qusra, to the south of Nablus, and resulted in injuries to Palestinian residents, with some volunteers requiring hospitalisation.

The report further added that while Israeli troops did arrive at the scene, they did not intervene to stop the settlers. Instead, they fired warning shots into the air to disperse the foreign volunteers and Palestinian farmers. “The farmers were trying to reclaim land that had been previously burned by settlers,” he explained, noting that the attackers were from the nearby Esh Kodesh illegal settlement.

The attacks came after the International Court of Justice declared on Friday that Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories from 1967 is “unlawful” and must end. Almost 580 Palestinians have been killed by settlers and Israeli security services in the occupied West Bank since last October.

Sadly this is a recurring theme in the West Bank. My wife and I visited ‘The Tent of All Nations’ the home of Daud Nasser and his family last September in Bethlehem where similar acts of violence have occurred by settler groups, with Olive trees and crops destroyed munder the protection of Israeli police and the IDF.