Homes, Cars Burnt Down to Ashes

RAMALLAH, Occupied Palestine (Dispatches) -- Zionist settlers rampaged through towns in the occupied West Bank on Sunday evening, burning and attacking Palestinian homes and property for hours.
At least one Palestinian was martyred and nearly 400 wounded in the attacks, Palestinian health officials said.
Sameh Hamdullah Aktech, 37, was shot dead in Za’tara town near Nablus. The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said its staff treated someone for stabbing wounds and at least two others suffered head injuries.
Homes, shops, cars and agricultural land were set ablaze by settlers who roamed the streets of several Palestinian towns, mainly near Nablus. Attacks were reported in Ramallah and Salfit.
PRCS said at least 35 homes were completely burned down and 40 others were partially damaged. More than 100 cars were burnt or destroyed, it added.
“What the settlers are doing tonight are war crimes similar to the events of the Nakba and the attacks of the Zionist gangs,” Ghassan Daghlas, a Palestinian activist monitoring the expansion of Israeli settlements in the northern West Bank, told Middle East Eye, referring to the violent “catastrophe” of 1948 that lead to the creation of illegal entity.
Nine Palestinian families have had to be rescued from their burning homes, the occupying regime of Israel’s Channel 12 news reported.
One Huwara resident, Ziyad Dmaidi, told MEE that he barely got his family to safety before his home was set on fire.
Dmaidi was returning from work when he saw a group of settlers heading towards his house, he said, recalling a feeling of panic as he rushed inside to gather his family.
Within minutes “dozens of settlers” began smashing in windows, breaking into the house. The family escaped just as burning rubber tires were thrown inside. His home was completely destroyed.
“I never thought about the house or all our stuff, I was only thinking about my children and how to save them from this nightmare,” Dmaidi said.
“We got out of the house and off to safety with the help of the ambulance crews who were also attacked while trying to evacuate us.
“Our lives are in danger and all this is happening while the Israeli soldiers stand around waiting only to protect the settlers,” he continued.
Fida Hamad, another resident, told MEE that the settlers’ attack
was the largest she had ever experienced and that houses were set on fire with families still inside.
Large clouds of smoke billowed throughout the town to the constant sounds of screaming, she said.
“We were sitting in our homes, and suddenly we heard explosions and screams of panic. We learnt that the settlers had attacked the town,” Hamad recalled.
“My children started crying and I tried to calm them down, but the sounds of assault were louder than everything: swearing in Hebrew, smashing windows, burning vehicles, homes, and shops ... It was very terrible.”
Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh charged the Zionist regime with full responsibility for the attacks in Huwara and urged the international community to provide protection to the civilian population.
Meanwhile, Aida Touma-Suleiman, a Palestinian member of the Zionist parliament, condemned the attacks, tweeting: “The settlers are committing a horrific crime tonight in Huwara - burning homes while families are inside and wreaking havoc.
“They are acting in the spirit of the fascist government,” Touma-Suleiman said. “I spoke to several ambassadors and asked them to intervene.”
At least one Palestinian fire truck attempting to respond to the fires was attacked and its windows smashed. Several ambulances were also damaged, according to reports on social media. PRCS said they were prevented from reaching areas affected by the attacks in Huwara for two hours.
Earlier on Sunday, Hillel and Yagel Yaniv, two Zionists from Har Bracha, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, were fatally shot in their car while driving through Huwara.
The assailant rammed the vehicle, before shooting at the two and fleeing the scene. Just after the shooting, the Zionist regime’s military said it was pursuing the perpetrator.
Israeli settlers issued calls to organize a march to Huwara on social media to “seek revenge” for the attacks.
“Israeli settlers have been terrorizing the Palestinian communities today, in the occupied West Bank, attacking civilians and torching down houses and businesses,” the official account of the Palestinian mission to the UK tweeted, sharing a video of one of the fires and tagging Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and two Foreign Office Twitter accounts.
The occupied West Bank is home to about 2.9 million Palestinians as well as an estimated 475,000 Zionist settlers who live in regime-approved settlements that are illegal under international law.
Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a joint statement following Sunday’s initial shooting, announcing that parliament had passed legislation approving the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of attacking Israelis.
The rampage on Sunday came as Israeli and Palestinian Authority officials held talks in Jordan to try to curb raging revolution and a new intifada in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
In Gaza, women and masked men protested against the meeting in Aqaba and Hamas spokesperson in Gaza Hazem Qassem condemned it.
“We strongly condemn the Palestinian Authority’s participation in the security meeting with the Zionist occupation in Aqaba. This meeting aims to curb the Intifada and the revolution of our Palestinian people in the West Bank and Al-Quds,” he told Reuters.
On Saturday armed and masked fighters took to the streets of Jenin, joining several Palestinian factions from armed groups within mainstream Fatah to Hamas and Islamic Jihad who urged the Palestinian Authority to pull out of the meeting, calling it a U.S.-led plot against Palestinian aspirations.
The meeting at the Red Sea port of Aqaba brought together top Zionist and Palestinian security chiefs for the first time in many years, officials said.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s Middle East adviser Brett McGurk was attending, along with Jordanian and Egyptian officials.
At least 62 Palestinians have been martyred by Zionists this year, at a rate of more than one fatality per day. Meanwhile, 13 Zionists have been killed by Palestinians in the same period.
This follows a steep increase in violence in 2022 when at least 167 Palestinians were martyred in the West Bank and East Al-Quds, the highest death toll in those territories in a single year since the Second Intifada. Palestinian attacks killed 30 Zionists last year.