JERUSALEM (AP) — Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian home in the southern Israeli-occupied West Bank overnight, spraying tear gas on children and killing sheep, a Palestinian official said Tuesday. It was the latest in a series of settler attacks on Palestinians in the territory in recent months.
Israeli police said they arrested five settlers.
Settlers smashed the house's door and window and fired tear gas inside, leaving three Palestinian children under the age of four hospitalized, said Amir Dawood, who heads a unit that documents such attacks at a Palestinian government body called the Walls and Settlements Resistance Commission. He said the settlers also entered the family's sheep pen, killing three sheep and injuring four others.
Israeli police said they arrested five settlers on suspicion of trespassing on Palestinian land, damaging property and pepper spraying. They said they were investigating.
CCTV video of the attack in the town of Al-Samu, provided by the commission, shows five settlers wearing masks and dark clothing, some carrying batons, approaching a house and appearing to enter. Impact sounds can be heard, as well as animal noises. Another video from inside shows masked figures beating sheep in a stable.
Photographs of the aftermath, also provided by the commission, show broken car windows and a smashed front door. Bloody sheep lie dead while others stand, their wool stained with blood. Inside the house, photographs show broken glass and looted furniture.
Dawood said this was the second attack on the family by settlers in less than two months. He called it “part of a systematic and ongoing pattern of settler violence directed against Palestinian civilians, their property and livelihoods, carried out with impunity under the protection of the Israeli occupation.”
During the October olive harvest, settlers across the territory carried out an average of eight attacks a day, the most since the UN humanitarian office began collecting data in 2006. Attacks continued into November, and by 24 November the UN had recorded at least 136 attacks.
In the 1967 war, Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, areas claimed by the Palestinians as a future state. He resettled more than 500,000 Jews in the West Bank, as well as more than 200,000 in contested East Jerusalem.
Israel's government is dominated by far-right supporters of the settler movement, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and Cabinet Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the national police. Earlier this week, Smotrich said the Israeli cabinet had approved a proposal to build 19 new Jewish settlements, another blow to the possibility of a Palestinian state.
