Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians continued throughout the occupied West Bank, on Sunday, as soldiers assaulted and beat up a Palestinian driver working for the ministry of health. Settler attacks on Palestinians were also reported in the Jerusalem and Hebron districts.Israeli soldiers, Sunday, assaulted and beat up a Palestinian driver working for the ministry of health as he attempted to cross through Za’tara Israeli military checkpoint, on Nablus-Ramallah road, according to local sources.
Media officials at the Ministry of Health said the driver, 22-year-old Sulaiman Ahmed, was forced out of the car and thrown to the ground, before being brutally assaulted – under gunpoint – by Israeli soldiers stationed at the checkpoint. The driver sustained bruises throughout his body, WAFA correspondence reported.
The soldiers also searched the car thoroughly and without justification.
Also on Sunday, an Israeli settler opened live fire and seriously injured a Palestinian youth near Hebron, according to medical sources and witnesses and medical sources.
Witnesses said that an armed Israeli settler fired at least four bullets at Azzam Shalaldeh, 20, while he was picking olives in Wadi Sa’ir locality, northeast of Hebron, seriously injuring him in the neck, abdomen and foot.
Shalaldeh was transferred to Hebron’s Private Hospital for medical treatment, where his condition was described as critical.
Earlier Sunday, extremist Jewish settlers from the so-called ‘price tag’ group at dawn Sunday set a Palestinian-owned car on fire and spray painted racists graffiti on walls in Um Tuba, a village just southeast of Jerusalem, according to local sources.
According to witnesses, settlers from the ‘price tag’ group set a car ablaze and painted racist slogans that call for the killing of Palestinians, in addition to the Jewish Star of David. The car belongs to local Nayef Abu Tair.
The group has conducted similar attacks in Jerusalem and across the West Bank in recent years.
Violence by illegal Jewish settlers is commonplace. They have repeatedly attacked Palestinian property and worship places. Settler violence includes property and mosques’ arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, and attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.
‘Price tag’ attacks mainly include acts of anti-Arab vandalism; it refers to an underground anti-Arab Israeli group that carries out terrorist acts against Palestinian Muslims and Christians in the occupied territories and inside the occupied 1948 land.
The Israeli government is yet to declare the group and its acts as terrorism despite a sharp rise in their attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and inside Israel.
On July 31, a group of Jewish fanatics carried out a deadly arson attack against a home in Nablus’ village of Douma. The attack claimed the lives of a couple and their toddler son, Ali. Four-year-old Ahmad – who is still receiving treatment for his critical burns at Israeli hospitals – is the last surviving member of the Dawabsha family.
There has been a noticeable increase in violence by Israeli Jewish settlers against Palestinians and their properties across the West Bank districts and Jerusalem during the past few weeks.
According to the Ministry of Health, at least 57 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces and settlers during the ongoing security escalation since the beginning of this month.
