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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Settlers, army go on revenge rampage in West Bank</h1>
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<p class="gmail-node__submitted">
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-author"><a href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/tamara-nassar">Tamara Nassar</a></span> -
<span class="gmail-field gmail-field-publication-date"><span class="gmail-date-display-single">29 January 2023</span></span> </p>
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<span><img src="https://electronicintifada.net/sites/default/files/styles/original_800w/public/2023-01/230129_-_jenin.jpg?itok=fwmYeejo×tamp=1675030668" alt="Women wearing headscarves crying and comforting each other" title="" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="277"></span><p>Palestinians
mourn during the funeral of Omar al-Saadi on 29 January. He died of
injuries sustained when Israeli occupation forces shot him in Jenin
refugee camp days earlier.</p><small>
<span>APA images</span></small><p>Israeli settlers
attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in revenge for the
killing of seven Israelis by a Palestinian gunman at a settlement in
occupied East Jerusalem on Friday.</p>
<p>This came as the Israeli government was set to <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-29/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-says-israel-not-looking-for-escalation-but-prepared-for-anything-after-shootings/00000185-fd64-da5b-a1d5-fd65cac50000">arm thousands</a> more of its citizens, a move certain to lead to more vigilante killings and violence.</p>
<p>The Israeli government also vowed to “<a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-28/ty-article/.premium/netanyahu-planning-fast-and-powerful-response-to-east-jerusalem-attacks-source-says/00000185-f86c-d4a2-adb5-f86c883a0000">strengthen</a>”
its illegal West Bank settlements in response to Friday’s shooting,
using the bloodshed as a pretext to further confiscate and colonize
Palestinian land – another move certain to fuel more violence.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, occupation forces began collectively punishing the gunman’s family by <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/security-forces-seal-home-of-terrorist-who-carried-out-deadly-jerusalem-attack/">sealing off their home</a> in preparation for a revenge demolition.</p>
<p>Israel is also vowing more collective punishments – war crimes under
international law – including denying social security benefits to
relatives of alleged Palestinian attackers and deporting their families.</p>
<p>These kinds of collective punishment are an essential feature of
Israel’s system of apartheid, as they are only used against
Palestinians.</p>
<h2>Settler rampages</h2>
<p>On Sunday, groups of settlers <a href="https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/sylafh42o">attacked</a>
Palestinian cars with stones on roads in several locations in the West
Bank, including a crossroads near the Yitzhar settlement, close to
Nablus.</p>
<p>In that location, settlers attacked Palestinians with pepper spray
and one Palestinian was reportedly lightly injured by the stone-throwing
Jewish colonists.</p>
<p>A house and a car were set ablaze in the village of Turmusaya near Ramallah overnight on Sunday.
</p>
A second house in the same village was vandalized:
Israeli police are <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-29/ty-article/.premium/cars-property-torched-in-palestinian-villages-in-suspected-hate-crimes-by-israelis/00000185-fc62-d4a2-adb5-fc6af9b20000">reportedly</a> investigating the incident, but there is <a href="https://www.yesh-din.org/en/data-sheet-december-2021-law-enforcement-on-israeli-civilians-in-the-west-bank-settler-violence/">vanishingly little chance</a> anyone will be held accountable.
<p>Palestinian American citizens own both homes, and maintenance staff plan to notify the US embassy of the attacks.</p>
<p>Settlers sprayed “revenge” and “death to the Arabs” in the village as well, <a href="https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/sylafh42o">according</a> to <em>Ynet</em>, an Israeli publication.</p>
<p>Palestinians told media that Israeli soldiers in the area looked on and did nothing as the settlers rampaged.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, settlers uprooted and stole more than 100 olive saplings in the village of Aqraba near Nablus.
</p>
Settlers also set cars ablaze in Aqraba and Majdal Bani Fadil, another nearby village.
In Nablus, settlers vandalized a Palestinian ambulance:
They also reportedly damaged and destroyed tents used by farmers in the Jordan Valley.
Revenge attacks by Israeli settlers follow <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/seven-killed-jerusalem-settlement-attack">the killings of seven Israelis</a> in Neve Yaakov, a settlement in occupied East Jerusalem, by Khayri Alqam, 21, on Friday.
<p>Alqam, who was shot and killed by soldiers, is <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestinian-shooter-named-after-grandfather-killed-settler">reportedly named</a> after his grandfather who was killed by Israeli settler Haim Ferelman in 1998, along with three other Palestinians.</p>
<p>Despite this, Ferelman was later <a href="https://www.alarab.com/Article/320821">released</a>. He lives in a Jewish-only colony in the West Bank.</p>
<p>Friday’s killings in Neve Yaakov followed Israel’s attack on Jenin refugee camp on Thursday in which occupation forces <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israeli-bloodbath-jenin-kills-9-palestinians">killed nine Palestinians</a>, including two children and one woman. At least 20 people were injured in the Israeli attack.</p>
<p>A 10th person died from his wounds on Sunday. Israeli forces shot Omar Tariq al-Saadi, 24, in the stomach on Thursday, w<a href="https://www.facebook.com/mohps/posts/pfbid0qhA2cJbNPBZoVLL27XxFW3HeWkWJqhhxtXcQZti5pooykTqeSU6saCGgDfmH6q3Al">according</a> to the Palestinian health ministry.
</p>
<h2>Fuelling more violence</h2>
<p>The European Union <a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/israel-statement-high-representative-terror-attacks-jerusalem_en">strongly condemned</a> the attack in Neve Yaakov as an act of “insane violence and hate.”</p>
<p>Brussels also made the inflammatory and false claim that the attack
took place “in a Jerusalem synagogue” killing and injuring people “as
they attended Shabbat service.”</p>
<p>But Israeli media accounts uniformly say that the shooting took place in a street “<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/five-wounded-in-suspected-shooting-attack-in-jerusalem-assailant-shot/">near a synagogue</a>.”</p>
<p>By contrast, the EU <a href="https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/israelpalestine-statement-high-representative-events-jenin_en">retroactively endorsed</a>
Israel’s lethal attack in Jenin, saying that Brussels “fully recognizes
Israel’s legitimate security concerns, as evidenced by the latest
terrorist attacks.”</p>
<p>In reality, Friday’s shootings followed the Jenin massacre, which a UN official <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1151627428/palestinians-say-israeli-troops-kill-9-in-west-bank-raid">described</a> as “the deadliest single Israeli operation in the West Bank since at least 2005.”</p>
<p>As Gideon Levy, a columnist for Israel’s <em>Haaretz</em> newspaper, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2023-01-29/ty-article/.premium/what-where-you-thinking/00000185-f9d7-dfd4-add5-fbf708930000">wrote</a> on Sunday, “everyone knew the Jenin operation would set off a dangerous wave of violence.”</p>
<p>He said it was “not possible to invade the Jenin refugee camp without
a massacre,” adding that “no massacre in the camp could pass quietly.”</p>
<p>Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq <a href="https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/21158.html">documented</a> numerous violations of international law by Israeli forces during the deadly raid on Jenin refugee camp.</p>
<p>In one case, the Israeli attackers shot a Palestinian child and then
“a military vehicle ran over his deceased body, severing his right ear
and maiming his face.”</p>
<p>Following the Jenin massacre, Israeli media reported several attempts by Palestinians to attack Israeli soldiers or settlers.</p>
<p>The year 2022 saw <a href="https://electronicintifada.net/content/palestine-pictures-december-2022/36941">the highest number of Palestinians killed</a> by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since the second intifada nearly two decades ago.</p>
<p>According to The Electronic Intifada’s monitoring, 207 Palestinians
were killed by the Israeli military, police and settlers in the West
Bank, Gaza and inside Israel during the year, or died from injuries
sustained in previous years.</p>
<p>So far in 2023, Israel has killed an average of one Palestinian every
day, a fact little remarked on in Western media coverage, but one that
is driving the violence.</p>
<h2>Increased violence</h2>
<p>Another Palestinian allegedly <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-28/ty-article/.premium/two-wounded-in-shooting-in-east-jerusalem-less-than-a-day-after-deadly-synagogue-attack/00000185-f792-d4a2-adb5-f7ba4e2d0000">shot</a> and injured an off-duty soldier and his father in the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem on Saturday.</p>
<p>Media <a href="https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/2023/1/28/%D8%A3%D8%B5%D8%BA%D8%B1-%D9%85%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%88%D9%85-%D9%85%D9%82%D8%AF%D8%B3%D9%8A-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%87%D9%88-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D9%88%D8%AF-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA">identified</a> the shooter as 13-year-old Mahmoud Aleiwat.</p>
<p>The boy’s family <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/AJABreaking/status/1619279605545811968">denies</a> that he could have been involved in the shooting, though he is <a href="https://arabic.rt.com/middle_east/1429809-%D9%85%D9%86%D9%81%D8%B0-%D8%B9%D9%85%D9%84%D9%8A%D8%A9-%D8%B3%D9%84%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%85%D8%AF-%D8%B9%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%B1%D9%83-%D8%B1%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A9-%D9%84%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D8%AA%D9%87-%D8%B3%D8%A7%D9%85%D8%AD%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%8A-%D9%8A%D8%A7-%D8%A3%D9%85%D9%8A-%D8%B3%D8%AA%D9%81%D8%AA%D8%AE%D8%B1%D9%8A%D9%86-%D8%A8%D9%8A/">reported</a> to have left a message to his mother asking for forgiveness.</p>
<p>The soldier had his weapon on him and he shot the boy. Another settler also shot him.</p>
<p>The wounded soldier is in serious but stable condition, and his father is reportedly in moderate condition.</p>
<p>The child accused of the shooting is conscious and receiving treatment, according to <em>Haaretz</em>.</p>
<p>A relative of Mahmoud Aleiwat’s was shot by Israeli forces in Silwan days earlier.</p>
<p>Wadie Abdul Aziz Abu Rumouz, 17, was shot in the chest on 25 January.
Even while Wadie was in the intensive care unit, Israeli authorities
kept him under arrest.</p>
<p>He died from his wounds on Friday.
</p>
Israel is now planning on <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-29/ty-article/.premium/israel-seals-off-home-of-jerusalem-synagogue-shooter-in-preparation-for-demolition/00000185-fc3f-def6-a7b5-fd3f65600000">demolishing</a> the 13-year-old boy’s family home, as well as that of Khayri Alqam.
<p>Meanwhile, a Palestinian youth was <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-01-29/ty-article/.premium/suspected-palestinian-terrorist-shot-near-west-bank-settlement/00000185-fa78-d4a2-adb5-fa781ce20000">shot and killed</a> by a security guard near the Kedumim settlement in the northern West Bank on Saturday.</p>
<p>Karam Ali Salman, 18, had tried to enter the settlement armed with a pistol, the army <a href="https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1619467154793058305">claimed</a>. Video of him was shared by local media.</p>
<p>It shows a person walking carefully through a field carrying an object:
</p>
Israeli media did not report any injuries among settlers.
<p>Kedumim, which is <a href="https://www.btselem.org/settlements/2009_kedumim">built</a> on private Palestinian land, houses Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich.</p>
<p>In another incident, Israeli soldiers shot a Palestinian truck driver
who they claimed was attempting a car-ramming attack, but later <a href="https://twitter.com/idfonline/status/1619423055713042432">admitted</a> that this wasn’t the case.</p>
<p>The army said no one was injured in the incident.</p>
<p>Despite the spiraling bloodshed, Israel and its allies seem
determined not to learn that more killings and oppression of
Palestinians never quell resistance, but only fuel it.</p>
<p><em>Ali Abunimah contributed reporting.</em></p> <h3>
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