Seven Palestinians were injured on Thursday after illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers attacked farmers between the towns of Halhul and Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the occupied West Bank’s southern part.
Witnesses reported that groups of colonizers from the illegal settlement of Karmei Tzur, built on stolen Palestinian land, assaulted the farmers with stones, batons, and chemical pepper spray as they attempted to reach their fields in the Wardan area.
Palestinian medics evacuated the injured, suffering bruises, wounds, and loss of consciousness, to the Mahmoud Abbas Government Hospital in Halhul.
Later the same day, armed colonizers invaded the village of Birin, southeast of Hebron, terrorizing residents.
According to the head of the Birin village council, colonizers on horseback stormed the Wadi al‑A’war area near Palestinian homes, issuing threats to forcibly expel families from their land.
He added that Birin faces daily assaults from colonizers who recently established a new outpost, Adorin, on stolen Palestinian property. From this base, colonizers have destroyed crops, stolen livestock, vandalized homes, and carried out night invasions that terrorize women and children.
In a separate incident, colonizers stormed the town of Sebastia, northwest of Nablus in the northern West Bank, under heavy protection from Israeli occupation forces.
The head of the Sebastia council, Mohammad Azem, confirmed that colonizers invaded the town’s archaeological site, accompanied by soldiers.
Sebastia has faced repeated invasions and confrontations, part of a systematic policy of land annexation and colonization that threatens the town’s future, its residents, and Palestine’s cultural heritage.
In related news, Israeli colonizers invaded Palestinian farmlands in Kisan village, east of Bethlehem, and released their liver stock to graze on Palestinian crops before the locals forced them to leave.
On Wednesday evening, Jihad Nawaj’a, head of the village council of Susiya in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank’s southern part, was violently assaulted by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers.
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.
