Palestinian farmers, including child, beaten by masked Israeli settlers near Nablus

Wednesday December 26, 2007 10:07 by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC News

Palestinian sources reported Tuesday that a group of farmers in their fields near Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank, were badly beaten by a group of Israeli settlers living illegally in the area.

Masked Israeli settlers wearing Jewish prayer shawls

The settlements in the Nablus area are illegal under both international and Israeli law, but Israeli authorities allow the settlements there, deep within the Palestinian West Bank territory, to continue to expand on stolen Palestinian land.

Local sources reported that four farmers, including one fifteen-year old boy, were badly beaten with sticks and sprayed with pepper gas by Israeli settlers. Israeli police were called, but did nothing about the incident, and the assailants were not apprehended.

Of the four who were attacked, two were injured moderately and had to be treated at a local hospital in Nablus. "They parked on the road and we thought they were just hiking, but suddenly they put on masks and they sprayed me in my eyes and beat me and I couldn't see who it was," reported Hussein Asida, 46, one of the Palestinian farmers who was attacked.

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