Three separate settler attacks on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning resulted in one Palestinian dead and three injured, in different parts of the West Bank.On Tuesday evening, a Palestinian man identified as Abdul Muttaleb Hakim was rammed by an Israeli settler car, killing him instantly. The settler left the scene without being identified, and Israeli police called to the scene made no effort to identify the perpetrator.
In a separate incident just before dawn on Wednesday, a group of Israeli settlers set fire to parked Palestinian cars near Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank.
According to local sources, three cars belonging to Habes Husein Baragheeth, Suheil Muhammad Hussein Baragheeth, and his brother Yousef, were completely destroyed by the fires. Anti-Palestinian graffiti was found spray painted on the walls next to the torched cars.
The graffiti read ‘price tag’, which is a frequently-used term by Israeli settlers who say they wish to extract a ‘price tag’ from the Palestinian population who are living on land that the settlers want to take over.
In another attack by Israeli settlers on Wednesday morning, a group of settlers from Etzion settlement near Bethlehem fired tear gas on a family of Palestinians in Artas village. A ten-year old child was among those attacked, and he was transferred to a hospital in Beit Jala after being rendered unconscious by the gas.
The family attacked by the tear gas were relatives of Jamal Jaber Asaad, who was abducted along with his wife and sister Monday and charged with ‘trespassing’ on their family’s ancestral land. The Asaad family’s land has become a flashpoint for certain settlers in the Etzion bloc, who want to expand their settlement further onto the land of the village of Artas.
In September, the Israeli government issued tear gas and other weapons to Israeli settlers living illegally throughout the West Bank, and authorized the settlers to use the weapons against the indigenous Palestinian population. This was in anticipation of expected violence from Palestinians after the United Nations considered the issue of Palestinian statehood. Although there was no Palestinian violence, the settlers were allowed to keep the weapons, which are now stockpiled in settlements all across the West Bank.
