After a 9-year-old settler boy was stabbed by a Palestinian, about 100 settlers from the Yitzhar area arrived at the West Bank village of Asira al-Kabaliya and began to riot (photo by Activestills.org, 2008).
Time and time again
the Israeli settlers take the law into their own hands, most recently on
Saturday morning (14 September) in the southern Nablus district where dozens of
Israeli settlers, a majority of whom were armed, attacked the villagers in the Asira
al-Kabaliya and Madama villages to the south of Nablus.
From the early hours
of the morning the settlers, organized in groups, attacked the village of Asira from the east. The settlers opened
direct and random fire on the houses and residents, injuring eight people who
were taken to the public hospital in Nablus. Most of the injured suffered
bullet wounds and two of them were children. The injured residents are Wafa
Mohammed Subeh (17), Radi Husain Asayra (22), Yasen Maher Husain (26), Ibraheem
Mohammed Hamed (29), Radi Jameel Taher (20), Mohammed Ahmed Doud (7), Rasem
Abed El Fattah Amhed (32), Abed el-Fattah Ahmed (60), Ahmed Lotfee Ahmed (25)
and Noor el-Deen Yasen Hasan (26).
As noted, all of the
injured were taken to the hospital, some in serious condition such as Radi Asayra,
who was injured in his face.
The settlers, who came
from the nearby settlement of Yitzhar and others in the area, attacked the east of
the village, entering homes and vandalizing their belongings. The house of
Qasem Salah was seriously vandalized and the settlers also damaged the Salah
family car. Additional homes vandalized by the settlers belong to Abed Elbaset
Mohammed Ahmad, Ibraheem Mokhlef, Jamal Yousef, Mohammed Doud, Ahmad Doud and
Ahmed Abed Allah.
This wave of attacks
in the Asira and Madama villages transpired following the injury of settlers
from the Shalhevet Yam settlement, including a nine-year-old
boy, Tuviya Schtatman, who was stabbed on his back and hand.
The settlers also used
big stones to close the roads leading into the villages, thus preventing the
entry and exit of Palestinian vehicles.
Additionally in the Bethlehem area,
Israeli soldiers fired upon Palestinian children who were throwing rocks,
killing Hasan Mohammed Hasan Humaid (16) and injuring 20-year-old Abed Khaled
Humaid. Both were from the Taqo' village, located south-east of Bethlehem. Hasan died before
reaching the hospital in Bethlehem, from a bullet wound in his chest.
Documentation of
settler attacks by the Alternative
Information Center
and other human rights organizations demonstrate that the settlers from Itzhar
regularly engage in such aggressions against the villages of Asayra, Madama and
Hawwara. Palestinians from this area report that tens of similar cases of
vandalism were brought before the Israeli authorities, but to no avail.
The most important
issue here is the clear and tangible cooperation between Israeli soldiers and
the settlers. These settler attacks happened when the villages was under an
army-imposed curfew and when Israeli soldiers were located all throughout the
village. In many places in West Bank, including downtown Hebron,
the southern Hebron Hills and in the south of Nablus, there exists heavily accumulating evidence
that the settlers have successfully and long ago taken the law into their own
hands.
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Occupation Watch 
