RAMALLAH, July 15, 2025 (WAFA) – Israeli colonists physically assaulted a Palestinian man on Tuesday near the Neve Yaakov colony in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, according to local sources.
The victim, identified as Ahmad Al-Maghrabi, a bus driver from Jerusalem, was attacked while driving past the settlement. He sustained bruises and facial injuries as a result of the assault.
The incident comes amid a surge in settler violence across the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, with increasing reports of harassment and attacks against Palestinians and their properties.
In a separate incident, Israeli colonists on Tuesday erected two additional tents on Palestinian-owned land in the village of Al-Minya, southeast of Bethlehem, bringing the total number of colonist tents in the newly established outpost in the Al-Qarn area to five, according to local sources.
Zayed Kawazba, head of the Al-Minya village council, told WAFA that the latest expansion is part of an ongoing push by colonists to consolidate control over strategic areas around the village. Since the start of the war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, colonists have established three new outposts in the region: “Rakhmeh” to the north near Tuqu’, “Nasb Fatih Sadro” to the east, and the newly emerging “Al-Qarn” outpost to the south.
Kawazba emphasized that the continuous colonist violence has turned Al-Minya, home to around 3,000 residents, into a besieged and distressed community. Key village entrances from the west and south have been blocked, and the local high school has remained closed since the beginning of the Israeli offensive.
He added that colonists had previously seized approximately 250 dunums of village land, setting up a solar power station to supply energy to the nearby settlements of Ma’ale Amos and Ibei Hanahal, both built on Palestinian land.
Kawazba called on the international community and human rights organizations to intervene immediately to halt the settlers' escalating attacks, which have isolated the village and severely disrupted daily life for its residents.
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