Israeli settlers last night (Sunday) committed about 300 violations against Palestinians and their properties in towns of Huwara, Burin, Asira al-Qabaliyya, south of the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Ghassan Daghlas, who monitors settlement activities in the northern West Bank, said on Monday.
Huwara, Monday morning, February 27, 2023 (Photo: WAFA)
Daghlas told WAFA Palestinian news agency that Israeli settlers yesterday launched a massive attack against Palestinians, burning houses, assaulting citizens, which resulted in the killing of a Palestinian man identified as Sameh Aqtash, 37, and injuring more than 100 others. He added that the settlers targeted 30 houses, stoning some and burning down others in Huwara. The fanatic settlers also burned 15 vehicles. Daghlas noted that the settlers burned a barn, three vehicles and attempted to set fire to a house in Burin, while in Asira al-Qabaliyya, the settlers burned a house and a water tank and caused damages to vehicles in Odala town.
Earlier on Sunday, Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, two brothers from Har Bracha, an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, were fatally shot in their car while driving through Hawara. The assailant rammed the vehicle, before shooting at the two and fleeing the scene. Just after the shooting, Israel’s military said it was pursuing the perpetrator. Israeli settlers issued calls to organize a march to Huwara on social media to “seek revenge” for the attacks.
MK Ofer Cassif (Hadash) wrote that the pogrom was the work of “settler terror militia”” working under the protection of the “occupation regime to carry out war crimes.” MK Aida Touma-Sliman condemned the attacks, tweeting: “The settlers are committing a horrific crime tonight in Huwara – burning homes while families are inside and wreaking havoc.” “They are acting in the spirit of the fascist government,” Touma-Sliman said. “I spoke to several ambassadors and asked them to intervene.”
Thousands, among them Hadash activists, are expected to attend rallies, today evening in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Haifa, Nazareth and Beer-Sheva against the settlers’ terror in the West Bank and the occupation of the Palestinian territories.
“Huwara is closed and burnt. That is what I want to see. Only thus can we obtain deterrence,” far-right and coalition party Otzma Yehudit MK Zvika Fogel, a former Brigadier General, said in an interview on Galei Tzahal on Monday. “After a murder like yesterday, villages should burn when the army does not act,” Fogel added.
