Description

Photo:
Scene. Published by IMEMC News
_____

by IMEMC News
Aug 12, 2025

Several Palestinian civilians were injured Monday evening following an assault by illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers on the towns of Halhoul and Surif in the Hebron governorate, in the occupied West Bank’s southern part.

Media sources said the colonizers, accompanied by Israeli occupation forces, attacked residents in both towns, beating them severely.

Several Palestinians sustained bruises and contusions and received treatment at the scene.

In Halhoul’s al-Hawawer area, colonizers also vandalized grape harvests belonging to the Karaja family, looted additional crops, and set fire to the vicinity of a home owned by Mahmoud Ahmad Mahmoud al-Hour in the Ain al-Hamam area north of Surif town.

The blaze was an apparent attempt to burn the house, but firefighters from the Surif municipality managed to extinguish it before it reached the interior.

In related news, Israeli colonizers on Monday carried out a large-scale act of agricultural sabotage in the village of Deir Sharaf, west of Nablus in the northern West Bank.

Omar Nofal, deputy head of the village council, reported that the colonizers cut down dozens of olive, pomegranate, citrus, and grape trees on land owned by Palestinian farmer Mohammad Abdul Rahim Nofal.

In addition to the destruction of crops, the Israeli assailants also dismantled irrigation infrastructure, severing water pipes essential for sustaining the farmland.

On Monday evening, Israeli occupation forces assaulted Palestinian residents and international solidarity activists in Khirbet Ibziq, located north of Tubas, in the northeastern West Bank.

Local sources reported that the military raided the hamlet, stormed several homes, and physically attacked both civilians and foreign volunteers present in the area.

Two international peace activists sustained injuries during the assault and were subsequently transferred to the Turkish Government Hospital in Tubas for medical treatment.

Khirbet Ibziq, a vulnerable Bedouin community, has long been subjected to repeated military incursions and systematic harassment aimed at displacing its residents and obstructing international solidarity efforts. The latest attack underscores the growing risks faced by both local communities and foreign advocates working to protect them.

A reported by the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission revealed that July alone witnessed 232 documented acts of vandalism and theft by colonizers across the occupied West Bank.

These assaults resulted in the uprooting, destruction, and poisoning of 2,844 trees, 2,647 of which were olive trees, a symbol of Palestinian resilience and heritage.

Such systematic targeting of Palestinian livelihoods not only undermines food security and economic stability but also reflects a deliberate strategy to dispossess communities and entrench settler expansion under military protection.

Earlier Monday, Illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers attacked and forcibly expelled Palestinian shepherds from grazing lands in the al-Himma area of the northern Jordan Valley, in the occupied West Bank.

On Sunday, Israeli colonizers burned Palestinian property near Salfit, in the central West Bank, and established illegal settlement outposts, while occupation soldiers assaulted an anti-settlement activist south of Hebron in the southern West Bank.

These attacks are part of a growing pattern of settler violence across the occupied West Bank, often carried out under the protection of Israeli forces and aimed at terrorizing Palestinian communities, destroying livelihoods, and expanding colonial control.

All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.

Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.

Israeli occupation forces and paramilitary colonizers have killed 194 Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank, including 37 children and 6 women, since the beginning of this year, bringing the number of slain Palestinians since October 7, 2023, to 1029, including 210 children, 22 women, 17 elders, 1 journalist, and 2 medics. Israel still refuses to release the corpses of 253 slain Palestinians.

Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation forces have launched a genocidal campaign against the entire population of 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, resulting in the killing of 61,499 citizens, the majority of whom were children and women, and the injury of 153,575 others, in a preliminary toll, as a number of victims remain under the rubble and on the roads, and ambulance and rescue crews are unable to reach them.

Features