Aaron Boxerman and Pranav Baskar
Dozens of Israeli settlers burst into a Palestinian man’s home in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, trapping and attacking people inside, the Israeli military and Palestinian witnesses said. It was the latest in a series of assaults by Israeli extremists that have drawn international condemnation.
The attack took place near the Palestinian town of Qusra in the northern West Bank, where groups of Israeli settlers recently besieged the homes of several other Palestinians, including an American citizen. Violence has snowballed in the Israeli-occupied territory over the past several months, with Palestinians saying the Israeli authorities frequently look the other way.
But the ferocity of Saturday’s assault drew a rare condemnation from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has largely played down the attacks as the actions of a small minority.
The Israeli military said soldiers were sent to both Qusra and nearby Jalud after reports of violent clashes and Israeli rioters hurling stones toward Palestinians. Dozens of rioters had “barricaded themselves” inside a Palestinian home, the military said, leading Israeli forces to remove the attackers and confiscate their vehicles. It was not clear whether any Israelis were arrested.
The home’s owner, Luay Beyrouti, 29, said that about midday on Saturday, a handful of settlers had approached the structure, throwing stones. Later, dozens more arrived in cars, surrounding the house before breaking in and trapping him and the other Palestinians, who had been doing renovation work.
A separate attack unfolded about six kilometres away in the Palestinian town of Jalud. A group of masked Israeli settlers attacked and injured reporters with NBC News who were interviewing a Palestinian woman driven out of her home, the outlet said.
Settlers in a car approached the group as they were walking down a hill, hitting them with sticks and throwing rocks, according to NBC, which said three of its staff and the woman were hurt.
Israel’s right-wing, pro-settler government has frequently argued that concerns about settler violence are overblown, and officials have repeatedly signalled their support for Israelis accused of attacks.
But on Saturday, Netanyahu said the attackers were harming Israel’s reputation abroad, causing “immense harm to the law-abiding settler community” and damaging “Israel’s standing in the world”.
Settler violence at an ‘all-time high’
Isaac Herzog, Israel’s president, a largely ceremonial post, said the events were “reprehensible” and “stain Israel”. He vowed to “bring the rioters to justice.”
Attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians have risen sharply in the West Bank since the war in the Gaza Strip began three years ago. Israeli rights groups argue that few are prosecuted for the assaults, and that extremists have largely acted with impunity. A United Nations report last month found that settler violence in the West Bank had hit an “all-time high”.
This month, two other families in Qusra were trapped by Israeli settlers for days in their homes, despite Israeli military promises to remove the rioters. Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, condemned the attackers as “Israeli terrorists” and said he had asked the Israeli military and police to act.
Beyrouti said his home, several hundred yards from the previously besieged ones, was under renovation, and he had been working on it for months so he and his family could move in. When the attacks happened, he and other Palestinians who were there to work on the house, repeatedly called the Israeli authorities, hoping for help.
When soldiers arrived, they fired tear gas, he said, forcing them to flee to the roof to avoid choking. The Israeli attackers ultimately retreated, but at least some remained in the area, he said.
An Israeli police spokesperson did not respond to questions about whether any of the Israeli assailants had been arrested. Beyrouti said that the soldiers briefly detained him and the other Palestinians with him, telling them that they were not allowed to be in the area.
“It’s a closed military zone for us, the home owners, but not for the settlers who can arrive to attack and humiliate us,” Beyrouti said.
In a statement, the Israeli military confirmed handcuffing several Palestinians who it said had thrown stones during the episode. The statement did not say whether it had detained any of the Israeli attackers.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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