Palestinian medical sources reported that two Palestinians were shot and killed, on Sunday, and one resident was injured, after an Israeli settler opened fire at them near As-Sammoa’ town, in the southern West Bank district of Hebron. The sources identified the two as Na’im Salama An-Najjar, 33, and Anwar Khalil Abed-Rabbo, 35; the settler who opened fire at them is a truck driver.
Eyewitnesses reported that the settler opened fire at a group of Palestinian construction workers, and fled the scene.
Member of the Executive Committee of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Dr. Hanan Ashrawi, denounced the attack and stated that “the current racist formation of the Israeli government, the Knesset and the Israeli military, granted the settlers a green light to conduct organized crime, and to directly target the unarmed Palestinian people in the West Bank”.
In a press release issued Monday, Dr. Ashrawi, who also heads the Media Department at the PLO, stated that the “shameful silence of the International Community regarding the ongoing crimes carried out by Israel and its settlers will drag the entire region into an endless cycle of violence”, the Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA) reported.
Ashrawi added that “the lack of international investigation into Israel’s crimes granted the settles an amnesty, and encouraged them to escalate their assaults. She held Israel fully responsible for the attack, and demanded the international community to hold the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu responsible for these crimes, and to stop the ongoing assaults and escalation carried out by the army and by armed extremist settlers in the West Bank.
Dr. Ashrawi demanded an international investigation into these crimes, and said that the international community must provide urgent international protection to the Palestinian people.
