NABLUS, September 9,
2015 (WAFA) – Jewish settlers Wednesday set fire to large swaths of Palestinian-owned agricultural
land near the village of Burin, to the south of
Nablus in the West Bank, amid an intensified Israeli military and police
presence at the nearby Nablus-Ramallah road, according to local sources.
Witnesses informed
WAFA that a number of Israeli settlers from the nearby Jewish settlement of Yitzhar, built illegally on
the village’s land, broke into the area in the early morning hours and set fire
to agricultural land mostly planted with olive trees.
Meanwhile, Israeli army
and police forces stepped up their presence along the road that connects between
Huwwara checkpoint, just south of Nablus, and Za’tara (Tappuah junction) checkpoint, a few kilometers to
the south. According to security sources, the intensified military presence
came after a female Israeli settler came under fire while she was driving at
the road.
The Israeli army also
closed the roads leading to the nearby villages of Beita and Einabus.
There was no
evidence of correlation between both incidents despite the fact that both incidents
occurred almost in the same area, just outside the Jewish settlement of
Yitzhar.
Yitzhar is infamous
for housing the most extremist settler community in the West Bank; settlers
there regularly attack vulnerable Palestinian communities as well as clash with
members of the Israeli security forces. The settlement is at the forefront of
the settler movement's so called 'price tag' policy which calls for attacks
against Palestinians in retaliation for actions of the Israeli government
against West Bank settlements.
In May 2014, the
Israeli security agency Shin Bet said the price-tag hate crimes were mainly
attributable to about 100 extremist youths, mostly from Yitzhar, acting on
ideas associated with rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg at the community's Od Yosef Chai
yeshiva.
Violence by extremist
Jewish settlers is commonplace. On July 31, a group of Jewish fanatics killed
18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and seriously injured his entire family, during a
predawn arson attack which targeted two homes in the village of Duma, south of
Nablus. The baby’s father, Sa’ad Dawabsheh, died of his wounds at an Israeli
hospital about a week later, while his mother, Riham, 27, died of her wounds
over a month after the incident.
According to OCHA
Protection of civilians Weekly report covering the period between 18 and 24 of
august 2015, “Five Israeli settler attacks resulting in injury to Palestinians
or property damage were recorded, including the stoning and injury of a
six-year-old girl and vandalism to a souvenir shop, both near Al Ibrahimi
Mosque in the Israeli-controlled H2 area of Hebron city.”
Al-Haq human right
organization stated that, “Attacks by Israeli settlers in the occupied West
Bank against members of the Palestinian population and their property are an
extensive, long-term, and worsening phenomenon.”
Settlements are
illegal under international law as they violate Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention, which prohibits the transfer of the occupying power’s civilian
population into occupied territory.
M.N./T.R.
