An elderly man was seriously injured when a group of settlers of Alon Moreh settlement hurled stones at him and severely beat him as he was herding his sheep on his land near the settlement.
Aziz Hanani, 70, from Beit Dajan near Nablus, said that he was attacked by five settlers who stole his cane and beat him with it for approximately twenty minutes, causing serious injuries, mainly to his head.
Hanani added that three of the settlers also hurled stones at him during the attack.
A tractor driver passing near the area later on, saw Hanani laying on the ground, and took him to his home, where he was transferred by ambulance to a local hospital in Nablus.
A nephew of Hanani said that his uncle suffers from diabetes.
“This is unbelievable, intolerable, we are living on our land, taking care of our fields, we never attacked anybody, never harmed anybody, yet they attack us with this brutalityâ€Â, the nephew added.
Abu Akram, a resident of the village called the Israeli police about the attack. The police department dispatched one police car one hour after they were informed on the attack, and made no effort to track down the settlers involved in the attack.
“If a settler was attacked, and mildly injured, the police would have arrived immediately and attacked our village, but since the injured man is a Palestinian, they showed up an hour after the attackâ€Â, the resident said.
Also, Abu Akram added that the police said that they would investigate the event, but similar promises in the past have rarely been followed up on by Israeli police. The police took a statement from Hanani, who informed them that he would be able to easily identify at least one of the settlers, the most violent of his attackers.
Settlers of Itamar and Alon Moreh settlement have carried out several attacks against Palestinian residents in Nablus area.
The residents demanded that the Israeli police act against the increasing numbers of settler attacks against unarmed Palestinians.ÂÂ
