Settler violence spreads in occupied West Bank

Jewish settlers have attacked a Palestinian village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Reports say that dozens of illegal settlers set fire to two cars and completely destroyed a third, and sprayed racist graffiti on the village mosque. Ghassan Daghlas, an official with the Palestinian Authority who monitors settlement activities, said that the settlers came from Yitzhar, a settlement close to the village of Hawara, and painted slogans and a Star of David on Bilal Bin Rabah Mosque before they left the village.

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In another incident, settlers attacked Mikhmas, near Ramallah. According to Samir Kanaan, the head of the village council, a large gang of settlers uprooted olive, nut and fruit trees. Mr. Kanaan said that settler violence has been increasing recently, following the Israeli occupation authority’s confiscation of hundreds of acres of land from the village which it intends to annex in contravention of international law to the illegal settlements of Ma’ale Michmash and Beit Yaakov.

There are around half-a-million Jewish colonist-settlers living illegally in the occupied West Bank. Settler-only roads, military zones and the Israeli “Separation Wall” have cut the West Bank into many non-contiguous zones reminiscent of the “Bantustans” created by the apartheid South African regime.