Settlers Attack Palestinian Village, Painting Threats, Puncturing Tires

Jewish settlers sprayed painted racist slogans and damaged cars in the Palestinian village of Marda in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, October 13. Slogans daubed on walls in the community included “price tag” and “Demolish enemy property, not Jewish.” The tires of cars in the village, located near the settlement of Ariel, were punctured and Stars of David were painted on the vehicles.

Some results of last Wednesday’s attack by settlers in the village of Marda: Racist slogans of incitement, punctured car tires, Stars of David spray-painted cars of Palestinians. (Photos: WAFA)

Attacks, assaults and vandalism by settlers against Palestinians in the occupied territories are commonly referred to as “price tag” attacks. Perpetrators claim that they are retaliation for alleged government policies seen as hostile to the settler movement.

On the same day, an officer and soldier from Israel’s occupation military forces were slightly injured hurt by settlers after being maced with pepper spray by an Israeli near the illegal West Bank outpost of Adei Ad. The two were speaking with a Palestinian man who reported that settlers had destroyed olive trees in the nearby town of al-Mughayyir. Suddenly a number of young settlers, some of them masked, reportedly attempted to attack the civilian with a metal rod. Amidst the confrontation, one of the settlers sprayed pepper spray into the military vehicle, slightly injuring the two Israeli soldiers.

This incident followed a violent settler attack on Border Police troops near the settlement of Yitzhar in the northern West Bank on Monday night, October 11, during which at least one officer was injured. The commander of a Border Police unit, Superintendent Hagai Saban, who was attacked by dozens of settlers near the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar said on Tuesday, October 12, that the unit did not make extensive use of riot control means against their assailants “because we were in a Jewish community, and we understood that.”

Settler Violence Directed against Ongoing Palestinian Olive Harvest

The Palestinian olive harvest began last week. Each year the harvest is marked by incidents of vandalism by settlers against Palestinian trees and violence against farmers. In the town of Awarta, east of Nablus in the northern West Bank, settlers chopped down dozens of olive trees and sprayed pesticides on others virtually destroying them, according to Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settler activities in the area. He said the settlers came from the illegal Itimar outpost settlement built on usurped Awarta land.

Last week settlers uprooted 900 olive and apricot saplings and stole olive crops in the village of Sebastia, north of Nablus, and uprooted another 70 trees in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the southern West Bank.