Israeli settlers carry out attacks in Palestinian villages in the West
Bank, June 2019
In June 2019 (up to 18 June 2019), Israeli settlers carried out attacks
in five Palestinian villages in the West Bank. Footage of three of the
attacks was captured on security cameras. The first two assaults took
place at around 10:30
on the morning of 5 June 2019: In the first, in the village of Yasuf,*
Salfit District, settlers threw stones at the home of a Palestinian
family and vandalized the family’s car. In the second attack, settlers
came to the village school in Jalud, Nablus District, and some of them
threw stones at the building. Several minutes later, some of the
settlers went into a nearby olive grove and set it on fire. Palestinian
firefighters were called in but were unable to contain the fire due to
the difficulties posed by the terrain. Six Israeli firetrucks from the
nearby settlements of Shvut Rachel and Ahiya arrived on the scene, but
their crews did nothing to help until the fire began spreading towards
the settlements. Only at about 1:00 P.M. did the Israeli teams begin
extinguishing the fire, using helicopters. The fire was finally put out
at around 5:00
P.M., by which time it had consumed about 1,000 fruit trees and about a
dunam [1,000 sq. meters] of Jalud’s wheat fields. About ten days later,
at around 1:00 A.M. on the night of 17 June 2019, a group of settlers
came to a neighborhood on the outskirts of the village of Kafr Malik,
Ramallah District. They slashed the tires of five cars, three of them
owned by a single family, and spray-painted graffiti on the village
mosque.
Two attacks that were not captured on camera took place in the villages
of ‘Einabus, Ramallah District, and Deir Istiya, Salfit District. On 13
June 2019, settlers slashed the tires of five vehicles in the village of
‘Einabus and spray-painted graffiti on the mosque, the medical clinic
and a home. On 18 June 2019, settlers slashed the tire of 23 cars in
Deir Istiya and spray-painted graffiti on some of the homes.
*The clock on the security camera in the village of Yasuf had not been
set, so the timestamp on the footage shown is incorrect