West Bank Violence: Child and Four Women Injured in Settler Attacks
Al Jazeera Staff
Six people, including a child and four women, were injured in an Israeli settler attack on Ma'in village in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron, the Palestine Red Crescent Society says. The assault is part of a wider wave of attacks across the occupied West Bank during the olive harvest, which followed a ruling by far-right Rabbi Dov Lior sanctioning the seizure of Palestinian olive groves.
Six people, including a child and four women, were injured when Israeli settlers attacked residents of Ma'in village in the Masafer Yatta area south of Hebron, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The incident is part of a string of attacks across the occupied West Bank as Palestinian farmers enter the olive harvest season.
In the town of Deir Ammar, west of Ramallah, Israeli forces opened fire on farmers picking olives, forcing them off their farmland, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. In the same area, Israeli settlers shot and wounded two Palestinians. In the village of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli forces fired at a Palestinian civilian vehicle.
In the village of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah, settlers raided a farm at dawn and killed about 20 sheep, Mayor Najeh Rustum said. He added that Israeli forces had also raided the village the previous night, firing tear gas that set a house alight and caused material damage.
Al Jazeera correspondent Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said settlers had destroyed olive groves across the Beit Furik plain, east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, while Israeli forces detained landowners and olive pickers.
In the village of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, Odeh said settlers protected by the army fired live rounds at farmers in the al-Hariq area to stop them completing the harvest and force them off the land. Settlers also smashed the car of international activist Jonathan Budlak in the village and stoned a farmer's vehicle.
In the village of Burqa near Ramallah, Israeli forces and settlers prevented farmers from picking olives; settlers also attacked farmers in the Wadi al-Sha'er area, southeast of Salfit.
"What we are seeing, whether in Beit Furik, Kafr Malek, Deir Jarir or elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, is part of a campaign," Odeh said. According to the correspondent, settlers are growing increasingly brazen and openly promote their attack campaigns on social media.
She said 300 attacks have been recorded since the start of October, dealing a serious blow to a key season for Palestinian farmers. The danger comes from both soldiers and settlers, she said, as the army regularly intervenes to protect settlers and attacks Palestinians defending their land.
Prominent rabbi justifies the attacks
The attacks follow a religious ruling by Rabbi Dov Lior — a prominent rabbi of the Jewish Power party of National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and an authority figure in the Hilltop Youth, a religious Zionist group that advocates seizing Palestinian land in the West Bank.
In the ruling, Lior declared that harvesting olives on holy land is entirely permissible and even carries added merit, citing security risks. He wrote that Jews are permitted to harvest olives even in areas far from Jewish communities in order to publicly assert ownership of the land and fulfil God's commandment to conquer it. He asserted that the land belongs to Jews and that Palestinians did not buy or lease it.
According to Odeh, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plays down the attacks and has taken no concrete action to stop them. "This is a controversial issue among politicians, but no one stops these settlers, even though their names, locations and homes are well known," she said, arguing that the political establishment lets the violence continue because it is "politically useful" and helps win votes ahead of the October 27 election.
