Young settlers attack two Palestinians with the presence of the Israeli army

Two Palestinians documented that settlers attacked them in front of the Israeli army, in the city of Hebron, while Palestine considered the intention of the Israeli president to “storm” the Ibrahimi Mosque as “a further aggressiveness.”

Two Palestinians document a settler youth assault on a journalist and human rights activist in full view of the Israeli army (social media)

A video filmed by two Palestinian journalists and a human rights activist, Saturday, showed settlers assaulting them in front of the Israeli army, in the city of Hebron in the southern West Bank.

The video shows five settler youths attacking the activist Issa Amro and the journalist Nidal Al-Natsheh, in the presence of two Israeli soldiers who did not intervene to prevent the attack.

Amr, who is the founder of the (non-governmental) "Youth Gathering Against Settlements", told Anadolu Agency that the attack "was with the hands and with abusive words, during a press interview he was conducting with the journalist about the protection that settlers enjoy during their attacks from the official level and the occupation army."

Amr continued: "A group of young settlers attacked us, and tried to prevent us from filming several times, then they brought two extremist soldiers, and the attack did not prevent us."

He stated that "whenever the settlers stopped filming or pushed the photographer, one of the soldiers would interfere and threaten them, then they detained me and Nidal for more than an hour and a half before releasing us with threats and threats in case we were in the same area even though it was a place of residence."

He pointed out that the attack "occurred on the land of a Palestinian family in the Tel Rumeida area in the center of Hebron, where there is a settlement outpost nearby."

The Palestinian activist considered the incident "another evidence of the exchange of roles between the army and the settlers in attacking the Palestinians and harassing them."

He said, "Herzog's intention to storm the Ibrahimi Mosque and Hebron tomorrow (Sunday) is proof that he is not a man of peace, but a man of settlement and apartheid."

According to Amro, in the center of Hebron there are five settlement outposts established on Palestinian properties, and inhabited by about 800 settlers.

Storming the Ibrahimi Mosque

Palestine said, on Saturday, that Israeli President Isaac Herzog's intention to "storm" the Ibrahimi Mosque in the city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, on Sunday, "is an increase in aggression."

Chief Justice and Adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud al-Habbash said in a statement that Herzog's decision "intensified the racist Israeli aggression against our Palestinian people and its religious sanctities and deliberately provoked the feelings of the Palestinians, and indeed the feelings of millions of Arabs and Muslims."

And Israeli media reported that Herzog plans to visit the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron, on Sunday, to participate in the celebration of the so-called "Jewish Festival of Lights".

Al-Habbash warned of the "very dangerous and difficult repercussions of the storming, for which the occupying power bears full responsibility."

The Undersecretary of the Palestinian Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs, Husam Abu Al-Rub, also held Israel responsible for the "repercussions of the expected intrusion."

The Palestinian News Agency quoted Abu al-Rub as saying that "the Israeli occupation bears the repercussions of this step," which he considered "a new attack and an encouragement for settlers to continue their incursions and attacks on holy sites, whether the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque or the Ibrahimi Mosque, and churches as well."

For his part, the director of the Ibrahimi Mosque, Sheikh Hefzy Abu Sneina, ruled out "closing the Muslim section of the mosque with the arrival of Herzog."

He told Anadolu Agency, "Herzog's storming of the Ibrahimi Mosque is a flagrant violation of its sanctity, a provocation to Muslims, and the perpetuation of the settlers' presence there."

Earlier on Saturday, Hamas leader Ismail Radwan held Israel "fully responsible for the repercussions of this attack," calling on the Palestinians in Hebron and the West Bank to "confront and confront it."

According to the Hebron Agreement of 1997, between the Palestine Liberation Organization and Israel, the city of Hebron was divided into two areas, the first “K1” under Palestinian control, and the second “K2” under Israeli control, the latter estimated at about 20 percent of the city’s area, and in which the Old City and the Ibrahimi Mosque are located. .

In July 2017, the UNESCO World Heritage Committee declared the Ibrahimi Mosque a Palestinian heritage site.

Following the massacre committed by Baruch Goldstein in 1994 in the Ibrahimi Mosque, which resulted in the death of 29 Palestinians, the occupation authorities cut off more than half of the mosque and turned it into a synagogue.