Illegal Israeli Settler Attacks on Palestinians, Israeli Soldiers Increasing

Israel: Settler attacks on Palestinians, Israeli soldiers increasing

Date: 02 / 10 / 2008  Time:  14:20
Jerusalem - Ma'an -

Illegal Israeli Jewish settlers are committing hundreds of acts of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank, Israel's chief military officer in the occupied West Bank said on Thursday.

Settlers are also escalating attacks on Israeli occupation soldiers who occasionally intervene, the general said in an interview with Ha'aretz.

"In the past, only a few dozen individuals took part in such activity, but today that number has grown into the hundreds," Major-General Gadi Shamni told Israeli reporters on Thursday.

"That's a very significant change," he added.

According to the Israeli occupation army commander, settler attacks against Palestinians occur not as sporadic acts of violence, but as "conspiratorial actions" against citizens.

Shamni said that the "grave phenomenon" was gaining new levels of scrutiny by the Israeli populace, as many attacks are committed or planned by Jewish rabbis.

The United Nations (UN) had already reported 222 separate incidents of settler violence within the first six months of 2008, compared with a similar figure for the entire year of 2007, almost twice the average.

Palestinians insist that the illegal Israeli settlers have been harassing them for years. Among the commonly reported incidents are cases in which settlers burn olive trees or throw rocks at farmers.

On 13 September, dozens of settlers raided the West Bank village of Asira Al-Qibliya. Witnesses reported that many were armed with weapons, including guns, slingshots, knives and stun grenades.

Israeli forces evacuate settlement as olive trees burn

Date: 02 / 10 / 2008  Time:  15:28
Bethlehem - Ma'an -

Illegal Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian's olive trees on Thursday, prompting Israeli occupation forces to evacuate an outpost nearby, police said.

Israeli occupation forces shut down the Shavut 'Ami illegal outpost in response to the attack on the Palestinian's property in the village of Kafr Qaddoum in the northern West Bank.

Israel evacuates an illegal outpost in the northern part of the West Bank

Thursday October 02, 2008 22:48 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC & Agencies

Israeli occupation soldiers and policemen evacuated on Thursday at noon an illegal Israeli settlement outpost called Shavot Ami near Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank. Settlers clashed with the soldiers and hurled stones at them; no injuries were reported.

The Israeli police arrested the head of the council of the illegal Israeli settlement of Qadumim, Dani’ella Vice, on suspicions that she attacked a number of policemen during the evacuation process. The police are also probing an act of sabotage in which Palestinian lands, which belong to the residents of Kafr Qaddooum, near Nablus, were set ablaze.

Meanwhile, Gabi Shamny, member of the Central Command of the Israeli Army, criticized West Bank settlers for repeated attack against Palestinian residents and Israeli soldiers in recent weeks.  

He told Haaretz Israeli newspaper that the right wing settlers “carried radical attacks, and that these attacks increased due to encouragement they receive from leaders of settlements, some right wing religious and political.

Several weeks ago, Israeli settlers unleashed one of these dogs against a military commander and the dogs attacked the commander causing fractures in his arm. The settlers also tore the tires of a vehicle which belongs to a reserve soldier after he tried to stop settler children who were hurling stones at Palestinian residents.

Shamny stated that such attacks are a daily occurrence in the West Bank although there is no direct contact between the settlers and the Palestinian residents.