[News] 'We will stay here until Palestine is free, ' says farmer beaten by Jewish settlers

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeastmonitor.com
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20221024-we-will-stay-here-until-palestine-is-free-says-farmer-beaten-by-jewish-settlers/>
'We will stay here until Palestine is free,' says farmer beaten by Jewish
settlersOctober 24, 2022
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[image: image.png]

Last month, a 51-year-old Palestinian farmer was tending to his family land
on the outskirts of the village of At-Tuwani, where they grow olives, figs,
tomatoes and zucchini. A group of five masked Israeli settlers, armed with
MI6 rifles, bats and metal pipes, emerged suddenly from the nearby illegal
settlement outpost of Havat Ma'on and assaulted him.

In an attempt to defend himself, Hafez Hureini lifted his shovel to block
their strikes. Despite this, his arms were dislocated and broken.

"When the settlers started shooting," he told me, "I used all my energy to
get away from them and sat nearby waiting for the ambulance." However, when
the Palestinian ambulance crew arrived and started to give him first aid, a
large force of Israeli soldiers arrived and detained him.

The Jewish settlers, he explained, shouted to the soldiers to arrest him,
even though the ambulance crew from the Palestinian Red Crescent (PRC)
showed them his broken arms. The settlers alleged that Hureini had attacked
them, and the soldiers then destroyed the stretcher on which he was lying,
slashed the tyres of the ambulance and attacked the PRC crew.

"They arrested me for trying to kill a settler and even used handcuffs on
my ankles before taking me to the investigation centre in the illegal
settlement of Kiryat Arba in occupied Hebron. They interrogated me and I
gave them my testimony in all honesty with every detail. I explained to
them that I was the one who was attacked on my land and had my arms broken
by the settlers."

[image: 51-year-old Palestinian farmer Hafez Hureini]

51-year-old Palestinian farmer Hafez Hureini

The family's lawyer was only allowed to speak to him briefly, and was
banned from being present during the interrogation.

According to Israeli security officials last month, "A group of
Palestinians approached the outpost, prompting two Israelis to confront
them. One of the Palestinians then attacked one of the Israelis, and the
other Israeli fired in the air. Soldiers then arrived at the scene to
separate the two sides."

*Haaretz *reported that the Palestinian "suspect" was "lightly injured in
the confrontation." The newspaper failed to mention the fact that both of
the alleged suspect Hureini's arms were broken by the settlers during their
attack; that is what "lightly injured" means, apparently. "How can a man
with broken arms beat someone?" he asked.

During his ten days in detention, Hureini had to appear at the Israeli
military court in Ofer Prison. He was transferred to the court in a vehicle
in which Palestinian prisoners are handcuffed on metal chairs. This was an
extremely painful experience for him to be transported in such a way to and
from the court. He was released on bail of 10,000 shekels ($2,890) after 10
days of such physical torture. None of the five settlers who were involved
has been arrested or even questioned.

"This is what Israel means by 'justice'," said Hureini. "Palestinian
victims are turned into 'criminals' and made to suffer. I spent more than
24 hours without sleep, and was then interrogated for hours over and over.
Apparently, I am the 'criminal'."

Born and raised in At-Tuwani in the Masafer Yatta region of the occupied
West Bank, Hafez Hureini is a prominent human rights activist. Over the
years he has observed ever more attacks by illegal Israeli settlers and
occupation troops. It's all part of Israel's ongoing ethnic cleansing of
occupied Palestine.

He remembers when the first settlers came to the area in the 1980s, and
they established the outpost that would become the illegal Ma'on
settlement. "At the beginning of the eighties, the Israeli occupation
authorities started to implement an apartheid policy as the ethnic
cleansing continued. They separated the entire area from the city of Yatta
by the well-known bypass road 317 and divided it into two parts: a
settlement area and the other military firing zone 918."

[image: 51-year-old Palestinian farmer Hafez Hureini]

51-year-old Palestinian farmer Hafez Hureini

Masafer Yatta is to the south of Hebron and falls within Area C, which is
60 per cent of the occupied West Bank. It is under Israel's military and
administrative control and, as a result, the occupation state reserves the
area largely for the benefit of illegal Jewish settlers. The area is not
connected to the water and electricity grids which supply the surrounding
illegal settlements and outposts. Israel forbids the Palestinians in the
area from building or connecting their properties to public services. It
also restricts their access to their pastures and enables settler violence
in order to make Palestinian lives so unbearable that they will leave of
their own volition.

"The Israeli occupation began by stealing and confiscating lands and
building settlements on them for extremist settlers," Hureini pointed out.
"From the eighties until today, Israel continues its apartheid and ethnic
cleansing policies through the military administration that governs and
controls us. Land is confiscated and stolen; areas are closed to
Palestinians; and military checkpoints are placed at the entrances to
villages. We also face a constant barrage of insults and harassment."

*READ: Rachel Corrie wanted to ensure she could always return to Gaza, says
her mother. 'In a way, she never left'
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20220920-rachel-corrie-wanted-to-ensure-she-could-always-return-to-gaza-says-her-mother-in-a-way-she-never-left/>*

He noted that his family has had more than 60 per cent of its land stolen
and handed over to Israeli settlers. "This is a war crime."

As well as being released on bail last month, Hureini was also banned from
tending to his own farmland for 30 days.

The local Palestinian community has noticed a surge in Israeli raids and
settler attacks since the Israeli High Court approved in May the demolition
of the homes of more than 1,000 Palestinians living in some eight
communities in Masafer Yatta to make room for Israeli military training.
The decision prompted strong local and international condemnation
<https://middleeastmonitor.com/20220517-un-israels-expulsion-of-palestinian-community-inhumane-illegal/>
.

"That court ruling is evidence that the Israeli occupation state continues
to carry out the crime of ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians," said Hafez
Hureini, "However, we won't stop our peaceful protests even as they try to
expel us from our land. For us, that's how life is, until Palestine is
free."
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