A child and an elderly man were injured on Monday evening after illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers violently assaulted them in the Khalayel al‑Louz area, east of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank.
Locals said a group of colonizers invaded the area, attacked Palestinian homes, and severely beat 80‑year‑old Ibrahim Ahmad Hassan Abayat, causing significant bruising to his shoulder and back.
They added that the colonizers also assaulted 14‑year‑old Mustafa Abu Jalgheef, who sustained fractures in his limbs.
The attack comes amid a sharp escalation in colonizers’ violence targeting residents and property in the eastern parts of Bethlehem Governorate.
Khalayel al‑Louz, in particular, has faced months of repeated assaults, including home invasions, attacks on residents, and attempts to impose new facts on the ground by force under the protection of Israeli forces.
The areas adjacent to colonial outposts east of Bethlehem continue to experience systematic restrictions, including nightly assaults, preventing access to agricultural land, and targeting farmers and shepherds.
These practices have intensified the suffering of residents and created a persistent atmosphere of fear and instability in communities near the settlements.
Also, a group of colonizers attacked the Bedouin community of Khallet ad‑Sidra on Monday evening near the town of Mikhmas, northeast of occupied Jerusalem, and cut trees.
The attack followed another incident the previous evening, when colonizers invaded the community, stole solar‑powered floodlights, and later returned at dawn to seal the road again with soil and stones.
At dawn Sunday, Israeli colonizers invaded the town of Huwwara, south of Nablus in the northern occupied West Bank, at dawn on Sunday and set fire to a Palestinian vehicle in the Be’er Qoza area.
Numerous violations have been documented in which colonizers from nearby illegal outposts, particularly those linked to Yitzhar, have carried out coordinated assaults on Huwwara, often under the protection or passive presence of Israeli occupation forces.
These attacks , some fatal, have included burning homes, endangering families, burning farmlands, hundreds of cars, destroying agricultural property, attacking farmers and olive harvesters throwing stones at homes and shops, and spray‑painting racist slogans intended to terrorize residents and assert control over the area.
According to The Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission, Israeli forces and colonizers carried out 2,144 attacks during November. The Israeli army committed 1,523 of these attacks, while colonizers carried out 621, concentrated mainly in the governorates of Ramallah and al‑Bireh (360), Hebron (348), Bethlehem (342), and Nablus (334).
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
