By Qais Abu Samra
RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA): Israeli settlers vandalized a number of Palestinian vehicles in suspected “price tag” attacks near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Monday, according to a local Palestinian official. Israeli settlers also attacked, late Monday night, a Palestinian home in Orif Village, south of West Bank city of Nablus.
Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Moataz Tawafsheh, the mayor of Sinjil town, said Israeli settlers slashed the tyres of 13 Palestinian vehicles in the town.
“Settlers sprayed racist slogans on two vehicles in the town,” Tawafsheh said.
“Price tag” vandalism is a strategy used by extremist Jewish settlers to attack Palestinians and their property in retaliation for perceived threats to Israeli settlement expansion.
Adel al-Amer, the Secretary of Orif Village Council, said the Israeli assailants hurled stones at the home of Nihad Najeh Abdul-Fattah, causing damage to the windows of the property.
Israeli settlers removed an iron gate placed at the entrance of a farm land belonging to a Palestinian resident in the town of al-Khader, south of the southern West Bank district of Bethlehem, said a local activist.
Ahmad Salah, coordinator of the Anti-Settlement Committee in the village, said that a group of settlers tied the gate to a car and pulled it down.
Settlers further attempted to attack the land owner, Khader Sbaih. However, the farmer managed to defend himself against their attack and to force them out of his land.
According to Palestinian figures, more than 700,000 Jewish settlers now live on 196 settlements (built with the Israeli government’s approval) and more than 200 settler outposts (built without its approval) across the occupied West Bank.
International law views the West Bank and East Jerusalem as “occupied territories” and considers all Jewish settlement-building activity on the land to be illegal.
Additional report by The Muslim News
[Archive Photo: Israeli settlers and soldiers attack Palestinians in West Bank. photo by ISM Palestine/Creative Commons]
