HEBRON, Thursday, September 09, 2021 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers Thursday overnight vandalized Palestinian property in the old city of Hebron in the southern West Bank, according to local sources.

Aref Jaber, an activist from Human Rights Defenders, a project that aims to document human rights violations by the Israeli occupation in Palestine, said that a group of settlers attacked Palestinian homes and vehicles in the Jaber neighborhood, smashing their windshields.

He added that Palestinians attempted to fend off the settler attack, but were met by Israeli military gunfire. No injuries were reported though.

The assailants came from the Kiryat Arba‘ colonial settlement, notorious for its hardcore violent settler community.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

Settler violence includes property and mosque arsons, stone-throwing, uprooting of crops and olive trees, attacks on vulnerable homes, among others.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment.

K.F.