HEBRON, February 13, 2025 (WAFA) – Israeli occupation forces detained a Palestinian from Masafer Yatta, south of the occupied West Bank city of Hebron, according to a local activist.

Osama Makhamara said that the occupying forces rounded up a Palestinian from Khirbet Iqwawis, one of the 19 hamlets making up Masafer Yatta, at a time when the soldiers protected colonists who planted trees on a tract of land belonging to the Abu ‘Iram family in the hamlet as a prelude to take it over.

Meanwhile, Israeli colonists chased Palestinian shepherds in Wadi Al-Juwaya, denying them access to pastures. They grazed their cattle on wheat and barley crops, damaging them.

Makhamra added that there has been an upsurge in attacks by Israeli colonists against Palestinian farmers and shepherds to deny them access to their cultivated land and pastures as a means to displace them and take over their land for colonial settlement construction.

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

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

Over 700,000 Israeli colonists are living in colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in violation of international law.

K.F.