RAMALLAH (Dispatches) – Dozens of Zionist settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank, hurling stones at cars and homes and leaving several people wounded, including a Palestinian toddler, activists said Wednesday.
Video of Tuesday’s attack released by an Israeli rights group showed several shirtless settlers with scarves wrapped around their faces hurling stones at a cluster of homes and vehicles. Zionist troops stood among the settlers but did not appear to be taking any action to stop them.
The occupying regime’s military declined to comment.
Sami Hureini, a local Palestinian activist, said a group of Zionist settlers attacked a Palestinian shepherd near the village of Mufaqara and slaughtered four of his sheep. He said they then stormed the village itself, attacking residents with clubs and stones.
He said a four-year-old boy, Mohammed Bakr, was hospitalized with a head injury.
The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem released video of the attack and provided a similar account. It said Zionist troops fired tear gas at Palestinian residents and arrested at least one Palestinian. A Zionist trooper can be seen throwing a tear gas grenade at the Palestinian who filmed the attack and then shoving him.
Meanwhile, the occupying regime’s top court on Wednesday approved another delay to the demolition of a strategically located Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank that drew international concern.
The regime is locked in a legal battle with a right-wing Israeli NGO over the proposed demolition of Khan Al-Ahmar, situated east of Al-Quds along a road leading to the Dead Sea.
The hamlet was set to be evacuated and demolished three years ago after it was ruled to have been built illegally, and attempts to agree on an alternative site for relocation failed.
Khan Al-Ahmar’s fate drew international concern, with several countries calling on the occupying regime not to move ahead with plans to demolish it, and in October 2018, the office of then-prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu froze the demolition plans.
Nearly 500,000 settlers live in the occupied West Bank, which the Zionist regime seized in the 1967 war. The territory is home to more than 2.5 million Palestinians, and the Palestinians want it to form the main part of their future state.
In addition to more than 120 authorized settlements, more Zionist settlers have established dozens of outposts in rural parts of the West Bank.