Jewish settlers abduct, assault elderly Palestinian in occupied West Bank

Israeli Jewish settlers assaulted an elderly Palestinian after abducting him for several hours on Sunday, Anadolu has reported. Hussein Abu Sharikh, 69, was eventually released near the Meitar checkpoint, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank.

His son Mohammad told the agency that his father was tending to his sheep when he was abducted in the village of Khallet Al-Tayaran. “Five armed settlers accompanied by soldiers abducted my father around 6.30 pm and took him to the Tina settlement, where he was kept for four hours and beaten.”

He noted that his father was released near the Meitar checkpoint and taken to a local medical centre, where he was treated for multiple bruises.

According to the Colonisation and Wall Resistance Commission, far-right Jewish settlers have carried out at least 1,760 attacks since the beginning of 2024. Nine Palestinians have been killed by the settlers in the same period. Altogether, at least 692 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,700 wounded by the Israeli army fire in the occupied West Bank since October last year.

The escalation follows a significant ruling by the International Court of Justice on 19 July which declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories to be unlawful and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. According to international law, all of Israel’s settlements and settlers are illegal.

READ: Senior Israeli officers accuse government of encouraging escalation in West Bank