Description

Video: Settlers from the "Holy Fire" settlement attacked the village destroying around 250 olive trees and farm machinery. Plastic bullets and clouds of tear gas were used by the soldiers to attack the villagers.

Photos: published by ISM

NABLUS (Ma’an) -- Dozens of settlers raided the northern West Bank village Qusra overnight Monday, uprooting more than 190 olive trees, an official told Ma'an.

Several residents of the village, near Nablus, were assaulted, and homes and a tractor were also damaged in the raid, settlement monitoring official Ghassan Daghlas said.

Palestinian security guards chased the settlers, and detained four of them for a short period of time. The Israeli forces quickly intervened, entered the village, and released the settlers, Daghlas said.

Also overnight, settlers entered Beit Ummar village north of Hebron, and burned a car and tractor belonging to resident Suhail Bragheith.

The vandals also sprayed graffiti saying: "A good Arab is a dead Arab" and "Yitzhar revenge is on the properties today, and tomorrow will be on the souls." Israeli troops entered the village, and told residents they would investigate.

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Red Crescent attacked during settler raids in Qusra

Report by International Solidarity Movement


While people around the world were celebrating the start of a new year the Palestinian town of Qusra in the West Bank was under attack. Around midnight December 31st 1settlers entered the agricultural outskirts of the town, uprooting approximately 250 trees. Reports from some of the villagers spoke of the Israeli Army lighting parachute flares over the olive groves to assist the vandals.

After a long night, the settlers returned in the morning with dogs. An elderly woman was home alone when she heard stones begin to pelt the outside of her house. Angry voices screamed “come out Arab men, come out and fight”. They trashed the tractor parked in her driveway, smashing its windows. Large stones built up on her rooftop, still visible when ISM visited her a few hours later.


The woman called for help and villagers responded by marching en-mass towards her house. At this point the settlers fled to a hilltop above the town and the Israeli Occupation Force moved in.

Angry clashes followed between the villagers and the Army causing significant casualties: at least 5 people were hospitalised; approximately 20 people were treated on the scene for inhalation of tear gas; around 15 sustained injuries from rubber bullets. While the Army engaged villagers in Qusra, reports came that the settlers had moved on to the village of Jalud. They set up a makeshift roadblock between Jalud and Qusra, terrorising Palestinian cars moving between the two villages.


At around 3pm a Red Crescent driver was driving supplies between Jalud and Qusra when he encountered the roadblock. The driver – Abdul Kareem Hassan – had his vehicle stopped and was pelted with numerous large stones by the settlers. Every window of the vehicle was smashed and Abdul Kareem suffered blows to head from the stones. By the time he was able to reach Qusra he was bleeding from the head and suffering respiratory stress.

A local resident told ISM he could not remember a week in the last two years when Qusra did not suffer from some kind of settler initiated aggression. Today’s attack, however, was particularly severe and an unwelcome start to the new year for the people of Qusra.

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