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HEBRON (Ma’an) -- A group of Israeli settlers attacked a number of commercial shops owned by Palestinians on Friday in central Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank near Israel’s illegal Kiryat Arba settlement.

Local sources told Ma’an that a group of Israeli settlers threw rocks and garbage at commercial shops under the protection of Israeli army forces.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an she would look into reports on the incident.

Settler attacks on Palestinians, their homes, and properties are a routine occurrence in Hebron, where the settlers are notoriously aggressive to Palestinian residents. Meanwhile, settlers from Kiryat Arba in eastern Hebron are well-known to be among some of the most extremist settlers residing in the West Bank.

Settlers from Kiryat Arba also routinely attack Palestinian shop owners and homes in the Old City of Hebron, a location of strategic importance for Israeli settlers eager to expand even deeper into Palestinian communities. Rights groups have pointed out that such violence committed on the Palestinian population has served to force local residents out in order to make room for a larger settler presence in the area.

Baruch Goldstein, an American-born settler from Kiryat Arba, killed 29 Palestinian Muslims in Hebron’s Ibrahimi Mosque in 1994. Following the massacre, Israeli forces divided the Old City of Hebron into Palestinian and Israeli-controlled areas, known as H1 and H2.

Some 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers now live under the protection of the Israeli military in the Old City, surrounded by more than 30,000 Palestinians.

Palestinian residents of the Old City face a large Israeli military presence on a daily basis, with at least 20 checkpoints set up at the entrances of many streets, as well as the entrance of the Ibrahimi Mosque itself.

Additionally, Palestinians are not allowed to drive on al-Shuhada street, have had their homes and shops on the street welded shut, and in some areas of the Old City, are not permitted to walk on certain roads.
Meanwhile, Israeli settlers move freely on the street, drive cars, and carry machine guns.

Between 500,000 and 600,000 Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across occupied the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in violation of international law.

Palestinian activists and rights groups have long accused Israel of fostering a “culture of impunity” for Israeli settlers and soldiers committing violent acts against Palestinians.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), there were a total of 107 reported settler attacks against Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem in 2016.