( Middle East Monitor ) – CCTV cameras from a Palestinian home captured the start of an attack by Israeli settlers which damaged property and left some requiring medical treatment in a village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. It’s the second such attack on Burqa village in as many weeks, Israelis from the nearby illegal outpost burned down a farmhouse in Burqa in late May 2023.
Illegal Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian residents of the village of Burqa near Nablus in the northern West Bank on Sunday evening, shooting at least four people and injuring 55 others, Anadolu has reported.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society confirmed that its medical teams treated four people injured by shrapnel from live fire, as well as 55 cases of tear gas inhalation during the settler attack. As usual, the settlers were protected by Israeli occupation soldiers during the attack.
“A group of settlers from the Homesh settlement infiltrated the village under the protection of the Israeli army, and attacked Palestinian homes in several areas of the village of Burqa,” explained Ghassan Daglas, who monitors settlement issues in the northern West Bank “Fighting broke out with the residents who confronted the settlers during the attack, which led to injuries.” About fifty settlers also attacked three houses on the outskirts of the village with stones, and smashed the windows of a number of vehicles, he added.
The village of Burqa is under constant attacks by settlers, as it is located near the once-evacuated Homesh settlement. In March, the Israeli Knesset approved the repeal of what is known as the “Disengagement Law”, allowing settlers to return to four settlements in the West Bank that were evacuated in 2005, including Homesh.
All of Israel’s settlements on occupied Palestinian land are illegal under international law, as are the settlers who live in them. Despite this, the governor of Salfit in the occupied West Bank, Abdullah Kamil, has publicised details of a new settlement plan aimed at seizing more than 2,471 acres of Palestinian land in the governorate for settlement expansion.
“The occupation authorities announced the decision to seize land belonging to the towns of Al-Zawiya, Deir Ballut, Rafat and Masha in the west of Salfit governorate, as well as in Suniriya, in the Qalqilya governorate,” explained Kamil. “The land is to be used for settlers’ industrial and tourist areas, settlement units and roads linking the settlements.”
In a related incident, reported the official Palestinian news agency WAFA, six-year-old Amin Daoud suffered bruises and contusions when settlers assaulted his family while they were grazing sheep in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron.
The Israeli NGO Peace Now says on its website that “more than 465,000 settlers currently live in 132 settlements and 146 random outposts on the [Palestinian] land of the West Bank.”
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