Reporting
West Bank: In Huwara, Israeli settlers took the law into their own hands
Audio 01:28
Israeli settlers led a punitive expedition to Huwara on the night of February 26-27.
They torched several Palestinian homes and set fire to dozens of cars.
© Sami Boukhelifa / RFI
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
An unprecedented, unprecedented outburst of violence in the occupied West Bank.
Last night hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara, south of Nablus.
In Israel, anti-occupation activists denounce a “pogrom”.
Dozens of homes and cars were set on fire.
Result: one Palestinian killed, a hundred injured.
The Israeli settlers therefore took the law into their own hands, after the death of two of their own, killed on Sunday by a Palestinian.
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With our special correspondent back from Huwara,
Sami Boukhelifa
Huwara woke up groggy after a night of terror.
The streets are still deserted.
The Israeli army is posted at the entrances to the city.
On the main street, the facades of some houses are black.
Licked by the flames for hours, some still smoke.
Mahmoud is there, confused, planted between his partially devastated store and his charred car.
They set fire to the entrance, devastated my office, but they couldn't penetrate the rest of the shop.
They also burned my car, and destroyed the CCTV cameras.
Look, they broke all the cameras.
But I think my cameras must have filmed their arrival.
“Where are the human rights?
»
His phone still in hand, Abderahmane, 22, documented the violence that night, as he does with every settler attack.
For months, attacks against the Palestinians of Huwara have been almost daily.
My message to the whole world: wake up!
Arab countries: wake up!
It's not just Huwara, it's all of Palestine that is going through an ordeal.
Every day people are killed.
Last week eleven Palestinians were killed in Nablus.
The Israeli army carried out a murderous raid there, in broad daylight.
Are there no international laws to prohibit this?
Where are the human rights?
What are the Arab countries doing in the face of these aggressions, here in the Nablus region, and in all the rest of Palestine?
From this Monday, Huwara will remain sealed off for three days.
“
The army is subjecting us to forced confinement
,” laments Abderahmane.
"
As always, the settlers commit crimes, and it is the Palestinians who pay
," said the young man.
► Who are the settlers who attacked Huwara?
The settlers who attacked were mainly from Yitsar, an Israeli settlement that overlooks Huwara. Who are they ? What do they want? Our permanent special envoy went to meet them.
Guard armed with an assault rifle, metal barrier, surveillance camera.
It is there in Yitsar, that David Fedida has lived for 16 years.
Franco-Israeli, father of eleven children, he has followed the events of recent days, minute by minute.
The punitive expedition, led by his family, Jewish settlers, against an entire Palestinian city "
is justified
", says this former Parisian who describes his feelings: "
anger, pain and the need for revenge
".
“
You have to be tough, firm to get your message across,
” explains this forty-year-old.
Huwara lived through a night of horror.
It's still not enough, he said.
“
It must be a national response, it must be the government, the country that must hit the table
.
»
And yet he concludes: “
We are ready to live as good neighbors with the Palestinians.
They must accept peace
”.
But under what conditions is peace possible with
the current Israeli government
?
Composed of Jewish supremacist ministers, annexationists, themselves from the colonies, and who openly incite violence against the Palestinians...
On the same subject
• Violence in Huwara: in all the Occupied Territories, "
we are in a colonial logic
"
• Israel: the far right refuses to condemn the attack on Huwara by settlers
• Occupied West Bank: the town of Huwara attacked by Israeli settlers
• In full talks in Aqaba, explosive situation in Huwara, in the West Bank
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