Times of Gaza reports: “lsraeli colonial settlers set fires to Palestinian-owned lands southern Nablus, occupied West Bank.” Quds News Network reports: “Army-assisted Israeli settlers attack the village of Qusra in the occupied West Bank.” Also: “Israeli occupation forces open fire on journalists and intimidate them with heavy machinery while documenting the Israeli military’s destruction of infrastructure in downtown Jenin.”
VIVI CHEN, faz3apress@gmail.com
Chen, a volunteer working with Faz3a, a group providing international civil protection, was in the village of Qusra during an attack. The group’s website is DefendPalestine.org.
See from the group: “Israeli Soldiers Shoot Five Palestinians During a Mass Settler Attack on West Bank Village; American Citizens Among Those Assaulted,” which includes video.
Chen described what she witnessed: “Israeli settlers shot a young man in the back in cold blood, beat an American citizen on the back of his head and threw stones at two others, hitting them in the forehead and hand, causing injury. The military did nothing to stop the attack and seemed interested only in attacking Palestinians and telling us to back up. When we asked the army for assistance in putting out one of the fires the settlers started, the military ignored us while one soldier blew us a kiss. The soldiers threw stun grenades that landed directly next to us as we were backing up with our hands in the air and shot at us as we continued to back away. Five residents suffered bullet wounds.”
Also available from the group are:
Jonathan Pollak, jonathan@defendpalestine.org
And in the U.S.: Rob Lipton, roblipton@gmail.com
The group described the attack they witnessed and the ongoing violence in Qusra as “part of a broader pattern of repression employed by the state of Israel. This attack happens as Palestinian refugee camps across the West Bank are raided by Israeli forces. Since Aug. 28, 22 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. The escalation of violence also follows the ethnic cleansing of at least 18 Palestinian communities since Oct. 7 alone, and the leaking of statements from Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, which outline a ‘dramatic’ plan to impose permanent Israeli control over the West Bank and expand illegal settlements.
“The village of Qusra, south of Nablus, has about 5,000 inhabitants. It is surrounded by the four illegal settlements of Esh Kodesh, Migdalim, Keida, and Ahiya. Since October, it has been the target of ongoing Israeli violence through dozens of settler attacks and military raids, often happening in tandem. Six of its residents were killed during similar settler attacks on October 11 and 12, 2023.”
See prior IPA news release: “U.S. Citizen Shot by Israel.”