Description

by B'Tselem
(The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories)

After the 9 January 2018 shooting attack in which Palestinians killed Rabbi Raziel Shevach near the settlement outpost of Havat Gilad, settlers threw stones at Palestinian cars travelling on the road leading to the settlement of Yitzhar and the Palestinian village of Qabalan, and along the Huwarah road. The settlers hit several cars, wounding two passengers: a resident of ‘Awarta sustained a fractured arm, and a resident of Qabalan suffered an eye injury which had to be sutured. The military responded by barring Palestinian traffic on a road that is a main traffic artery serving tens of thousands of people. For some three weeks the military prevented Palestinian travel along Route 60 on the section from the Huwarah Junction north to the village of Jit. The ban was lifted only on the morning of 29 January 2018.

On the night of the shooting attack, settlers arrived at the nearby Palestinian villages of Burin, ‘Asirah al-Qibliyah and Jalud, and threw stones at houses. These villages are subject to repeated attack by settlers, so most local residents have long since secured their windows with closely meshed metal bars.

The next day, Wednesday, 10 January 2018, at around 3:30 in the afternoon, after Rabbi Shevach’s funeral, settlers arrived at the eastern outskirts of the village of Far’ata. The settlement outpost of Havat Gilad was built about a kilometer away from the village. The settlers threw stones at homes in the village’s eastern neighborhood of Ras al-Bakri.

Testimonies taken by B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi reveal that scores of settlers participated in the attack and that some of them were masked. In response, several residents climbed onto their rooftops and threw stones back at the settlers, in an attempt to drive them away. After about fifteen minutes, soldiers arrived at the scene and removed the settlers, driving them back toward Havat Gilad. They made no arrests. Several settlers came to the neighborhood the next evening as well, but the residents, who had anticipated this and organized a watch, prevented them from getting near the homes.

This is not the first settler attack on homes in the Ras al-Bakri neighborhood, so some of the residents had already added safety features to their windows. Nevertheless, in the present assault, settlers did manage to break windows which had not been fitted with the metal meshing in seven homes, as well as a solar panel on another rooftop.

The repeated settler attacks undermine local residents’ sense of personal safety even in their own homes, and leave children terribly frightened. Palestinians have learned that they can find themselves subject to settler violence at any time. The fact that these incidents continue to take place over and over again, and that – despite the presence of security forces – no one is arrested and no measures are adopted against anyone has taught the settlers they can attack Palestinians with impunity.

Read complete report, with testimonies, here