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Wave of violence in wake of settler stabbing in West Bank

February 15, 2014 at 1:25 pm

Hundreds of Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank following the Tuesday morning stabbing of a settler by a local man. Salam al-Zaghal, 24, stabbed his victim and then used the settler’s gun to shoot at police before being wounded and taken to hospital under armed guard.

In Nablus, Palestinian children on a school trip were injured when settlers threw stones at their buses, breaking all of the windows on the vehicles. Another group of settlers attacked Al-Rebat Mosque near Nablus. They desecrated the building and damaged its contents. They also attacked a school and several houses in the neighbourhood. No casualties have been reported.


Meanwhile, other groups of settlers set fire to hundreds of olive trees on farms near Nablus and in Wadi Al-Maleh village in the Jordan Valley. The farmers in Nablus were prevented from reaching their land to tackle the blazes by settlers who threw stones at them under the watchful gaze of Israeli soldiers. Those in Wadi Al-Maleh were unable to do anything about the arson attacks because the whole was area was declared to be a closed military zone by the Israeli army. This clearly did not stop illegal settlers from being able to engage in criminal activity.

In Ramallah, dozens of masked settlers set fire to parked cars and hurled rocks at passing vehicles.