A number of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian locals from Khirbet Umm al-Kheir east of Yatta in the southern occupied West Bank by throwing rocks at them Saturday night, according to a local activist.
Ratib al-Jabour, coordinator of a local committee that resists settlement activity, said that a group of Israeli settlers hurled rocks and empty bottles at Palestinians, noting that no one was injured in the incident.
An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an they were looking into the case.
The South Hebron Hills, known locally as Masafer Yatta, lie almost entirely in Area C, the 62 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and security control since the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Around 3,000 Israeli settlers live in illegal Jewish-only settlements in the Yatta region, according to the Applied Research Institute Jerusalem.
The Umm al-Kheir community has faced ongoing threats of displacement since the Karmel settlement was illegally established in 1981, and has since expanded onto villagers’ lands.
While the hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in Jewish-only settlements across occupied the West Bank in violation of international law are permitted to carry guns, and are rarely held accountable for stone throwing or similar attacks, Palestinians face up to 20 years in prison for throwing stones where intent to harm could be proven, and 10 years where it could not.
Israeli authorities served indictments in only 8.2 percent of cases of Israeli settlers committing anti-Palestinian crimes in the occupied West Bank in the past three years, according to Israeli NGO Yesh Din.
