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Photos:
Scene. Published by Maan News
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NABLUS (Ma'an) -- Three Palestinians were injured on Wednesday morning after Israeli settlers assaulted a group of farmers picking olives in the Urif village in the Nablus district of the northern occupied West Bank.

Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian official who monitors settlement activity in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that Israeli settlers from the nearby Yitzhar settlement attacked and assaulted several Palestinian farmers.

Daghlas identified the injured as Taysir Mahmoud Salah, 47, his wife Itaf Salah and his sister Faida Salah with wounds.

The three were transferred to a nearby hospital for treatment.

According to the Applied Research Institute - Jerusalem (ARIJ), since the state of Israel confiscated land from Urif and other Palestinian villages to establish the illegal Yithzar settlement in the 1980s, "attacks and violence perpetrated by settlers has had a profoundly negative impact on Palestinian residents and their property," stressing that Yitzhar "poses a daily threat to residents of the neighboring Palestinian villages."

Settlers have also been known to steal crops, damage and burn trees and other plants, and attack places of worship in the area, in an attempt to intimidate Palestinian villagers and farmers from using their land.

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

In March, Israeli NGO Yesh Din revealed that Israeli authorities served indictments in only 8.2 percent of cases of Israeli settlers committing anti-Palestinian crimes in the occupied West Bank in the past three years.

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