Ten Palestinians were injured, including a woman struck by live ammunition, when illegal Israeli paramilitary colonizers launched an attack on residents in the agricultural area of Khalayel al-Louz, south of Bethlehem, on Saturday.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society confirmed that the colonizers shot ten Palestinians, including one woman, with live fire, before its medics transferred the injured to hospital facilities in Bethlehem.
Witnesses reported that groups of colonizers descended on the area, targeting farmers and residents with firearms and physical violence.
The attack is part of a wider escalation across the occupied West Bank, where colonizer violence has intensified in recent months.
Local rights groups noted that Khalayel al-Louz has faced repeated assaults, including the destruction of agricultural structures, uprooting of trees, and harassment of farmers.
Earlier this month, colonizers demolished a greenhouse and a water well in the same area, underscoring what activists describe as a systematic campaign to displace Palestinian communities and seize land for settlement expansion.
Humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have repeatedly warned that such attacks amount to collective punishment and violate international humanitarian law.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the incident, calling on the international community to intervene and hold Israel accountable for what it described as “state-backed colonizer terrorism.”
Saturday’s attack highlights the growing vulnerability of Palestinian civilians in rural areas of Bethlehem, where colonizer violence is often carried out under the protection or indifference of Israeli forces.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli soldiers and paramilitary colonizers have killed at least 1,086 Palestinians (including 37 killed directly by colonizers) and injured thousands across the occupied West Bank.
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.
