A group of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian man and woman in separate incidents in the Old City of Hebron Wednesday night, medical sources reported. Shaher Fakhouri, 43, and Ghazala Shaban Barade’y were both admitted to the hospital with various bruises and contusions all over their bodies, after being attacked by Israeli settlers living illegally in Hebron.
The criminal attackers were not apprehended, and no attempt was made by Israeli authorities to investigate the incidents.
Ms. Barade’y was attacked in Jaber neighborhood in the Old City of Hebron. The street leads to Keryat Arba’ settlement which was installed lands annexed from the Palestinian residents in 1967.
Fakhouri was hit by the Jewish settlers on different parts of his body and was admitted to the hospital in the city. Medical sources said that Fakhouri arrived to the hospital with bruises and scratches in the head and other parts of his body.
The Israeli settlers living illegally in the Hebron region are some of the most violent in Palestine, responsible for dozens of attacks on innocent Palestinians, many of them children on their way to and from school. Settlers have also been known to attack farmers in their fields and olive orchards, beating the farmers, sometimes to death. International observers have not been immune to settler attacks, with at least six incidents recorded of international observers and even Israelis being attacked by the Israeli settlers in Hebron.
The physical assaults on Palestinian citizens comes after an afternoon attack by Israeli settlers on Hebron-area orchards, in which 50 olive trees belonging to Palestinian families were uprooted. Such destruction of olive groves is usually to clear land for the expansion of Israeli settlements, although it remains unclear which of the Hebron-area settlements is planning expansion onto the farmers’ land destroyed Wednesday.
