Settlers Burn Olive Trees, Injure Washington Post Photojournalist in West Bank Harvest Attack
Dozens of militant Israeli settlers burned olive trees and threw rocks at Palestinians in a coordinated attack on Friday, October 16, on the West Bank village of Abu Falah's annual olive harvest, injuring at least two people including a journalist, according to Reuters.
Some 80 settlers, some carrying gas canisters, descended from a hill above a terraced olive grove where villagers had gathered to pick ripe fruit, Reuters witnesses said. Some used slings to launch rocks toward Palestinian villagers, who threw stones back in self-defense. 'The settlers want to attack us and force us from our homes,' said Moutaz Abdelhadi, 42, a farmer who witnessed the attack.
Partway through the attack, at least two Israeli military jeeps sped through the area, and soldiers fired tear gas in the direction of Palestinians, Reuters reported; a Reuters photographer saw at least one armed settler fire a gun. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Palestinian medics said two people were injured and taken to hospitals in the Ramallah area, one of them Heidi Levine, a photojournalist with the Washington Post. The newspaper did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Associated Press reported Levine suffered a nearly detached finger and broken vertebrae and would undergo surgery.
Earlier on Friday, settlers attacked farmers near the village of Turmus Ayya and burned three cars. Settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has surged, with at least 170 attacks since September 27, around the start of the annual olive harvest, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli settlements monitoring group. The West Bank is home to some 500,000 settlers and at least 3 million Palestinians.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 资料图：巴勒斯坦农民在橄榄收获季采收橄榄。بدارين 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，Wikimedia Commons。
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