WEST BANK:
The Israeli settlers who stormed the West Bank village of al-Mughayyer on April 12 came in greater numbers and brought more weapons than in any of the previous raids on the Palestinian community, residents said.
Days later, burnt houses and cars still bear witness to the attack, which residents say lasted several hours and that Israeli soldiers did nothing to stop it.
With little means of defense in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, they fear more such attacks on the village.
“We have stones and they have guns, and the army supports the settlers,” said Abdulatif Abu Aliyah, whose home was attacked. Its roof was spattered with the blood of Palestinians who were injured as they tried to repel the attackers with stones. One of them, Jihad Abu Ali’s relative, was shot and killed, he said.
“Of course, the goal is to force displacement,” he added.
Al-Mughayyer was one of several Palestinian villages raided by settlers for several days since April 12, an escalation that began after the disappearance of a 14-year-old Israeli boy. His body was discovered the next day near al-Mughayyer.
Israel said he was killed in a terrorist attack.
Violence in the West Bank, seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, had already increased before Gaza War began in October – fueling further bloodshed in the territory.
Settler violence is a source of growing concern among Israel’s Western allies. Some countries, including the United States, have imposed sanctions on violent settlers and urged Israel to do more to end the violence.
Washington imposed sanctions on Friday to an ally of Israel’s far-right national security minister and two entities that have raised money for Israeli men accused of settler violence.
The Israeli military said clashes spread in the area as a result of the teenager’s killing and included “exchanges of gunfire, mutual stone-throwing and burning of property in which Israeli and Palestinian civilians were injured.”
Asked about residents’ accusations that soldiers did nothing to stop the attack on al-Mughayyer, the military said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and security forces were operating with the aim of protecting “everyone’s property and life of citizens and the dispersal of confrontations”. .
Gunshot wounds
Ameen Abu Alia, head of the al-Mughayyer municipal council, said 45 Palestinians were wounded by gunfire in the attack, which began after hundreds of settlers had gathered on a road near the village.
Israeli troops arrived shortly before it began, setting up roadblocks and a cordon that left homes on the outskirts of the village cut off from its center, meaning villagers could not go to help those under attack, he said.
The soldiers also prevented ambulances from reaching the area to treat the injured, he said.
The Israeli military said the ambulances were “delayed for a security check and then given permission to continue”.
Abu Ali, the head of the municipal council, accused the Israeli army of providing security for the settler raid, which the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said was “accompanied by Israeli forces”.
Complaints about soldiers’ behavior that was not in accordance with orders will be investigated, the Israeli military said.
Israel has extensively settled the West Bank since 1967, considering the biblical Judea and Samaria as critical to Israel’s security. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promotion settlement development has drawn criticism in the US.
The settlements have gobbled up West Bank land where Palestinians have long aimed to establish an independent state that would also include the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as its capital.
Fire truck set on fire, sheep stolen
His home torched in the attack, Shehadah Abu Rasheed has set up a tent to provide temporary shelter. Inside, the walls of the house were charred black. Abu Rashid said his wife was hit by a settler and one of his four children suffered minor gunshot wounds.
Settlers also burned a fire truck sent to al-Mughayyer by the Palestinian Civil Defense Agency during the attack, the Civil Defense said. His charred remains were being loaded into a truck when Reuters reporters visited on Wednesday.
OCHA reported that settlers burned down 21 houses in al-Mughayyer, displacing 86 Palestinians, and that 32 vehicles were damaged and about 220 sheep were killed or stolen.
It has not been confirmed whether the Palestinian killed during the raid was killed by Israeli forces or settlers, it said.
Four of the seven Palestinians killed in the West Bank between April 12 and 15 died incidents implicating Israeli settlers in a series of attacks on Palestinian communities during and after the search for the 14-year-old Israeli, OCHA said. Another Palestinian was killed in a settler raid on April 20, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced.
The United States, Britain and European Union have imposed sanctions on violent settlers in recent months.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a briefing on April 15 that Washington condemned last weekend’s violence against Palestinians as strongly as it condemned the killing of the 14-year-old Israeli. The United States said it was “incredibly concerned” that Israeli security forces were not doing enough to stop settler violence, he said.
Al-Mughayyer is in a part of the West Bank where Israel has full security control under the interim peace accords that Palestinian leaders signed three decades ago in the belief that they would eventually lead to an independent state.
The arrangements mean most of the West Bank is off-limits to Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority security forces. Abdullatif Abu Alia, a resident of al-Mughayyer, said the most he was hoping for from the Palestinian Authority was help to build a protective fence around his home and reinforce the windows.
“What else can they do? They can’t even protect themselves,” he said, referring to Israeli raids on Palestinian towns.
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