A group of armed paramilitary settlers from the “Carmiel” Israeli colony in the southern part of the occupied West Bank attacked a Palestinian family on Friday. The attack followed the Israeli military’s demolition of five tents belonging to Palestinian families in the area just two days before.
The family was identified as that of Mahmoud Shanran. They had been living in caves in the area of Tha`la, east of Yatta in the southern West Bank.
Despite the fact that the Shanran family owned the land and the caves in which they were residing, the armed settlers claimed that the land was “Israeli state land” and that they were taking the land over for the state of Israel. According to the Coordinator of the Popular and National Committees in the south of Hebron, Ratib al-Jabour, the Shanran family refused to obey the threats of settlers and the occupation forces, and confirmed their ownership of their properties that the Israeli colonial settlers were trying to seize.
Nearby on Friday, dozens of Palestinians gathered to march in solidarity with the families whose homes were demolished two days before by the Israeli military. The march was also in solidarity with Palestinian Harun Abu Aram, who is quadriplegic as a result of being shot by the Israeli occupation forces in that area early this year.
According to the Wafa News Agency, the participants in the march raised the Palestinian flag and chanted slogans against the occupation’s policy of ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people.
