Over 100 settlers attack West Bank village in latest rampage

RAMALLAH, Palestinian territories

Graffiti reading "no future" in Arabic is depicted on a concrete block at the closed vehicle barrier of a checkpoint at the northern entrance of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. (AFP Photo)

More than 100 Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank early on Sept. 29, drawing rare Israeli government condemnation after they injured three members of the security forces.

The raid, along with another attack on a different West Bank village on Sept. 29, comes amid mounting international criticism of settler violence, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu downplayed in an address last week to the United Nations.

Settlers stormed the village of Jalud in the northern West Bank as the military attempted to accompany a Palestinian family back to their home after they had been displaced by settler attacks two months earlier.

The Israeli military said “more than 100 Israeli rioters” were in the area of Jalud overnight and soldiers and border police tried to disperse them.

“As a result of the clashes, three Israel Border Police officers were lightly injured, and a security forces vehicle was damaged,” it said in a statement.

One person was arrested and two minors were taken in for questioning, police said.

The military said the settlers had blocked roads, set tires on fire and thrown rocks at security forces, as well as setting fire to Palestinian buildings and vehicles in the village.

It added that the attack had prevented the return of the family, who had been displaced “following several incidents of [Israeli] nationalist crime against them.”

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and has been accelerating settlement expansion. Some 500,000 Israeli settlers live among three million Palestinians.

Netanyahu condemned the attack, which he blamed on a “a small group of rioters.”

Such criticism is rare for attacks in which the victims are Palestinian. Settler attacks against Palestinians including beatings, vandalism and arson averaged six a day in the first half of the year, according to the United Nations.

Recent weeks have also seen high-profile attacks against Israelis in the West Bank, including the shooting death of a settler by a Palestinian.

Israel has voiced outrage and imposed diplomatic repercussions after Britain, the Netherlands and other countries have imposed sanctions against products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law.

Mahmoud al-Toubasi, a member of the family seeking to return to Jalud, told AFP that he and his relatives had left the house more than two months ago, and that it had been occupied by settlers until the attack on Sept. 29.

“My wife, my son and I went to the house in the car, accompanied by an army vehicle in front of us and another behind us,” he said.

Settlers attacked the group upon their arrival at the house and were pushed back by soldiers with pepper spray, he added.