Settler Violence Report, January-February 2010

Hebron and South of West Bank
-    On 9 January, approximately 30 settlers—some of them armed— coming from the Bat Ayin settlement, north-west of Bait Ommar, attacked a group of farmers from the village working the land in the area of Wadi El Resh. The settlers threw stones and opened fire in the air to force the farmers to leave the land. The farmers are Jaber Mohammed Jaber El Sulaibi, 42 years old, Husain Mohamed ElSulaibi, 37 years old, and Fathi Ahmed Jabber ElSulaibi, 43 years old. The soldiers came to the site when they heard the shooting: instead of stopping the settlers' attacks, they declared the area a closed military zone and ordered the farmers to leave. It is well-known that the settlers from the aforementioned settlement often engage in attacks against the local farmers. This area became a hot spot in the last two years: the settlers want to expand the settlement and do their aggressions in order to prevent the farmers from coming to work the land.
-    On 14 January, settlers from the Ma’on settlement, south-east of Hebron District, uprooted 70 olive trees belonging to the farmer Mosa Khaleel Raba’a from the nearby village of Letwani. Mosa said: “When I came to the land located close to Ma’on settlement, I discovered that the trees were totally uprooted by cutting machines. When I was there, some settlers came and threatened me not to come back”.
-    On 23 January, hooded settlers attacked peace activists from the association Ta'ayush who were documenting the illegal Jewish construction in south Mount Hebron near the Hill 18 outpost. Keren Shalom of Ta'ayush was struck in the head by a stone and taken to the hospital with mild injuries. According to a witness, "thirteen of us arrived there, and we were attacked by four people, who were urged on by others". Security forces arrived later but they didn't intervene. The Israeli army declared the area a closed military zone
-    On 26 January, approximately fifteen settlers from the settlement of Ma’on and the outpost of Havat Ma’on invaded the village of At-Tuwani, south-west of Hebron, and attacked Palestinians. According to the statement released by the associations Operation Dove and Christian Peacemaker Teams, the settlers were accompanied by Israeli soldiers in three army jeeps and the settlement security agent of Ma’on. Villagers from At-Tuwani arrived, protesting the settlers coming into their village. An Israeli soldier punched a Palestinian villager, who was hospitalized for injuries: doctors reported that the nose of the villager has been broken. Israeli settlers began throwing stones at the Palestinian villagers while soldiers fired three canisters of tear gas at Palestinians. Afterwards, the settlers drove to the entrance of At-Tuwani, and began throwing stones at passers-by on the road.
-     On 7 February, settlers from Kiryat Arba and Givat  Kharsina, east of Hebron City, damaged 4 dunums planted with grapes in Baq’a to the east of the city. The land belongs to Jaber family. The settlers uprooted 8 vineyards. Badran Jaber told the AIC that “this action, added to daily attacks from the settlers in Baq’a, is aimed at forcing us to leave this land and annex it to the settlements”.
-    On 17 February, a group of settlers marched with their machine guns in the center of the Old City of Hebron. The settlers attacked a child, Madlene Imad Awni, while she was in the local market. She was taken to the Hebron Governmental hospital suffering from bruises and a concussion.
-    On 20 February, a group of settlers from Kiryat Arba and Givat Kharsina, east and north of Hebron City, attacked several families in El-Bowaira, east of the city. The settlers also stoned cars. The attacks caused the injury of a child, Ala Husni Abu Esaifan, 6 years old. He was taken to the Public Hospital in the city after being stoned in his head. The attack occurred in the afternoon. On the same day, settlers from Bait Haggai, south of the city. prevented the farmers from working their land, located to the south of the settlement. Five armed settlers came and at gunpoint forced the farmers to leave the place.
-    On 26 February, a car driven by a settler attempted to run into a Palestinian public vehicle, carrying eight people, off the road near Wad Amiq, west of Hebron. A car accident occurred: Mariam Abdel Fattah, 48 years old, from Durra, and Maher Nidal, 2 years old, were injured in the collision and taken to Muhammad Ali Al-Muhtasib Hospital. Medics described their conditions as stable.

Nablus and North of West Bank
-    On 1 January, two Palestinians from the village of Amateen, east of Qalqilya, were injured when settlers from the Yakir settlement attacked their car on the main road while they were returning from Ramallah. The injured are Ziyad Mahmoud Siwwan, 27 years old, and Osama Mustafa Siwwan. Ziyad was injured in his hand and Osama in his face by stones. Both were taken to Darweesh  Nazzal Hospital in Qalqilya for medical treatment.
-    On 4 January, during the night tens of settlers from settlements in the north of West Bank entered Ma’zoz  El-Masri School for Girls in the east of Nablus City. The school is located near Joseph’s Tomb. The settlers used to reach the religious site in order to pray, saying that it is a holy site for Jews. They damaged the main gate of the school as well as water pipes, and uprooted trees in the school garden. They damaged windows, classroom doors, and they wrote bad words against the Palestinians on the walls of the school, such as “death for Arabs”, “leave this place or we will kill you”. According to local sources in the city, the settlers used to attack this school when they came to the Tomb: the Palestinian Authority raised this issue many times with the Israeli side, but with no positive responses.
-    On 6 January, around 20 settlers from Givat  Gilad in the Qalqilya District attacked the farmer Husain Ibraheem Hamad, 76 years old, from Amateen village, east of the city, while he was cultivating his land. Husain was injured in his head and another farmer, Arafat Siwwan, 25 years old, was injured in his arm when the settlers attacked them with stones and stakes. Others were treated in the Public Hospital in the city of Qalqilya. Husain reported: “While we were cultivating our land located near the settlement of Givit Gilad, settlers came to the site. Some of them were walking and others were riding on horses: they directly attacked us by stones, stakes and the butt of guns. They also sent their dogs to attack us. Arafat Siwwan and myself were injured and taken to Darweesh Nazzal Hospital in Qalqilya. This is not the first time that the settlers from this settlement attack us: they usually do this to force us not to come and work our land so they can confiscate it later.”
-    On 8 January, settlers from the Halamish settlement, north-west of Ramallah, opened fire on the farmers from the village of  Dair Nitham who participated in a peaceful protest march against land confiscation orders in their village. The settlers, in cooperation with the Israeli army, opened fire and forced the farmers to leave the land.
-    On 13 January, settlers from Shavit Gilad  settlement, north of West Bank, burned three cars and an agriculture tractor belonging to families from the Amateen village. Ghassan Ghassan Duglos, Director of the Settlement File in the northern districts, reported that “in the very early hours of the morning, settlers committed attacks and aggressions, burning three cars and an agriculture tractor belonging to the residents Ayyad Abdallah Siwwan, Mohammed Sorour Ghanem and Ibraheem Ghanim”. When the residents from the village gathered and reached the cars, they saw the settlers running back to the settlement.
-    On 15 January, settlers from Revava settlement in the Nablus District fenced 25 dunams of land belonging to the Abu Serhan family from the Dair Isteya village, west of Nablus. The settlers levelled and damaged the land with bulldozers and then they fenced it. The land is located in the site called Khallet Azzam. The settlers dug up the land with bulldozers and built up a barricade to facilitate settlement construction. The Mayor of the village, Nathmi Salman, said that “this is part of the land confiscation policy to expand the settlement’.
-    On 19 January, settlers attacked a cemetery in the Orta village, southeast of Nablus, and vandalized graves. Ghassan Doghlas, official for the Settlement File in the West Bank, reported that Israeli settlers broke the gate to the village school and wrote graffiti on the walls. The settlers entered the village in the morning, accompanied by Israeli soldiers, saying they were visiting a Jewish holy shrine in the village.
-     On 22 January, in the afternoon dozens of settlers from the Yitzhar settlement, south of Nablus District, attacked the village of Iraq Boreen, south of Nablus. A physical fight took place between the settlers and the residents who gathered in order to defend themselves and to force the settlers to leave their village. The Israeli soldiers came and engaged in clashes against the Palestinians, causing the injury of Ahmed Isam El-Faqeeh, 16 years old, and Naser Daoud Daflose, 18 years old. Ahmed Isam El-Faqeeh was shot in his leg with a rubber-coated bullet and was taken to the Rafidya Hospital in Nabus city. Naser Daoud Daflose was wounded in his head and treated in the village’s local clinic. The settlers threw stones at several houses, causing damage to windows.
-    On 24 January, in the evening settlers from the Halamish settlement, north-west of Ramallah, uprooted fifteen olive trees belonging to Jamil Abdul-Qader, resident of the Dir Nitham village.
-    On 26 January, in the evening dozens of armed settlers invaded the village of Beit Illu, north of Ramallah. The settlers ravaged the house of Saleh Mohammad Saleh, before setting fire to the car of his son, Mohammad. The Israeli army did not stop the settlers.
-     On 27 January, a group of settlers from the settlement of Gush Talmonim, west of Ramallah, attacked Palestinians to avenge the demolition of the Givat Menachem outpost by the Israeli Special Forces Police. In the morning dozens of settlers gathered to prevent the demolition of the outpost's synagogue, but the police managed to destroy it. The settlers began chanting slogans such as "the police destroy nothing that belongs to Arabs", "the rule of evil is persecuting the settlements" or "in 24 hours, we will set this place up anew". About 20 settler teens, some with masked faces, cut branches from an olive tree and made themselves improvised weapons and picked up stones. The settlers reached a house belonging to the Mazar family, at the edge of Bitilu, which overlooks the nearby settlements. They threw stones at the windows and tried to set their car on fire. Two other members of the household tried to escape in another car, but the settlers surrounded them and pelted them with stones. Two members of the family were injured and taken to a local clinic. The settlers escaped after their attack to the village: at least 30 people were injured in this incident.
-     On 3 February, settlers from the outpost of Adi Ad, south of Nablus District, put their hands on 500 dunams in the site called “Jabal Halla” in land belonging to families from the Jalod village. The settlers brought four mobile houses (caravans) and set them on the land. The Mayor of the village, Abd Allah Haj Mohammed, reported that “this confiscation aims to expand the outpost recently built on land confiscated from the village, in a former military base abandoned by the Israeli army and where settlers built the outpost”.
-    On 3 February, a group of settlers from the settlement of Dutan, south-west of Jenin, and Israeli soldiers invaded the village of Kherbet Al-Hammam, 5 kilometres east of An-Nazlah Ash-Sharqeiyah, north of Tulkarem. A resident, Mohammad Al-Jaluli, was forced to destroy a sheep pen
-    On 4 February, settlers illegally took 500 dunums of land from Mount Hillah Al-Wusta, in the Palestinian village of Jalud, south of Nablus. Ghassan Doughlas reported that the settlers took over the land and parked four caravans on the area, near the Addy Add settlement.
-    On 8 February, settlers from the Sha’arei Tikva settlement, south of Qalqiya, opened the sewage pipes in the land of the village of Azzon Atma. The sewage ran through the village streets and around the houses. The garden of the school was also covered by the sewage. The Local Council of the village issued a statement about the event and informed the Red Cross, the Palestinian Authority and other human rights organizations about the event, calling on them to put pressure on the Israeli side to stop such dangerous actions that cause diseases among the residents and the trees. Moreover, the statement mentioned that this was not the first time this kind of violation occurred.
-    On 9 February, five settlers reached Palestinian farmland east of the village of Iraq Burin, near the Har Bracha settlement. The settlers were working the Palestinian land when Palestinians came to their land. Clashes erupted between the two groups: a civilian guard at the settlement shot a Palestinian teenager. Five settlers were lightly injured. Amid Kadous, 18 years old, was injured by a gunshot wound to the leg and taken to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus. Ghassan Doghlas said a settler opened fire directly toward Kadous.
-    On 11 February, settlers from several settlements in the north West Bank again entered the Ma’zooz El Masri School for Girls, east of Nablus, and broke windows and classes doors. According to eyewitnesses in the area, hundreds of settlers who came to pray in Joseph’s Tomb, close to the school, entered the school after the prayer. It is not the first time that the settlers do such aggressions in the school: according to Palestinian sources in the city each time the settlers come to pray in the place, saying that it is a holy site for Jews, they enter the school and commit the same attacks, in addition to damaging water pipes and uprooting trees in the school garden.
-    On 22 February, dozens of settlers from several settlements in the north West Bank entered the village of Kufol Hares, east of Salfeet District. The settlers came to visit some places in the village. The army closed the village and imposed a curfew on the residents to allow the settlers to move freely in the village. The settlers engaged in a march all along the streets of the village, shouting bad words at the inhabitants and raising racist slogans such as “death to Arabs”.
-    On 22 February, tens of settlers from Homish settlement, west of Nablus, attacked  Palestinian cars during both the day and night, on the main road linking Jenin and Nabus. Some cars windows were broken. The settlers forced Dr. Mohammed Saleh Salem to stop his car, damaged his cars windows and beat him physically.