West Bank: 17 Israelis arrested after attack in Palestinian village

Israeli security forces (illustrative image).

AFP

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1 min

Israeli police arrested young Israelis who committed violence against Palestinians.

The Israeli left and international NGOs criticize the Israeli authorities for doing nothing against the excesses indulged in by the settlers in the Palestinian villages in the West Bank.

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With our correspondent in Jerusalem,

Michel Paul

The facts date back to January 24.

A gang of young Israelis burst into the village of Hawara in the northern West Bank in several vehicles.

Using batons, stones and other devices, they carried out acts of vandalism, according to the Israeli police.

Result: one Palestinian injured and extensive damage to shops, vehicles and other property. 

Seventeen members of the group have just been arrested by the police.

They are mostly settlers, but some reside in Jerusalem and northern Israel.

Among them also a minor.

Police accused of laxity

They were detained for attack, prohibited assembly and damage to materials with racist motives.

They were escorting a settler in a convoy who had just completed a prison sentence for violence against Palestinians.

Details that deserve to be remembered, because the Israeli police are

accused of being lax

in the face of settler violence against Palestinians in areas of the West Bank where, under the terms of the Oslo accords, they are precisely supposed to ensure the protection of populations.

UN experts were alarmed in November by a record increase in settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank.

About 475,000 Jewish settlers live in the West Bank, as do some 2.9 million Palestinians.

All settlements are considered illegal under international law.

Read also: In the occupied West Bank, Jewish settlers attack Palestinians and Israeli left-wing activists

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  • Israelo-Palestinian conflict