Israeli settlers attack and beat foreign volunteers helping Palestinians in the West Bank

Israeli settlers have attacked a group of foreign volunteers helping Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank, leaving some of them hospitalized after the attack.

According to local Palestinian sources, Palestinian citizens were also injured in Sunday’s attack, which took place in the town of Qusra, south of Nablus.

Eight foreign volunteers, mostly Americans, were working with Palestinian farmers in an olive grove when Israeli settlers came after them, said David Hummel, an American-German in the group.

“We were standing there peacefully and posing no threat to anyone as they approached us and pushed us along the path,” Hummel was quoted as saying by AFP.

“They started attacking all of us and beating us with sticks and metal pipes, and they also threw stones at us,” he added.

“I was attacked on the legs, on the arms and also here on the jaw, and it was… very brutal,” added the volunteer, showing bruises on his face.

Hummel said the group of settlers who attacked her included six women.

The volunteers were members of the International Solidarity Movement, a group that says it sends people to provide a “protective presence” for Palestinians threatened by violence in the occupied West Bank.

The group also states that it was founded “to resist the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.”

According to Qusra Mayor Hani Odeh, two women were among the four activists who were treated after the attack and taken to Rafidia Hospital in Nablus.

Odeh added that Israeli troops arrived at the scene of the attack but did not stop the attacking settlers, instead firing warning shots in the air to drive away foreign volunteers and Palestinian farmers.

He noted that volunteer members of the International Solidarity Movement have been in Qusra for about a month.

“The farmers wanted to vacate the land after settlers burned it down some time ago,” Odeh said, adding that the attacking settlers were from the nearby settlement of Esh Kodesh.

The attack came after the International Court of Justice ruled on Friday that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 was “illegal” and must end.

“Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territories is unlawful,” the International Court of Justice said, adding that the regime was “obliged” to end this presence “as soon as possible.”

Since the start of the regime’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip in early October last year, Israeli forces and settlers have intensified their violent attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

According to Palestinian authorities, at least 579 Palestinians have been killed in these attacks so far.