REVISES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE, ADDS DETAILS
By Aysar Alais
RAMALLAH, Palestine (AA) – At least three Palestinians sustained injuries late Thursday after being assaulted by illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.
A 48-year-old man was injured after being attacked in the town of Huwara, south of Nablus in the northern West Bank.
He sustained bruises and was treated at the scene by emergency responders, according to a statement from the Palestine Red Crescent Society.
Two other men were injured when they were assaulted in the northern Jordan Valley region.
Witnesses reported that a group of settlers attacked the two while they were on their farmland in the village of Atouf.
The Red Crescent confirmed in a statement that medical teams provided emergency aid to the victims, who sustained bruises and other injuries.
The two men were then transported to Tubas Turkish Governmental Hospital, where their injuries were assessed as ranging from mild to moderate.
Earlier in the day, Mowafaq Shaaban, head of the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, said that illegal settlers have carried out nearly 1,760 attacks across the West Bank in 2024, resulting in the deaths of nine Palestinians.
Many Israeli officials have openly expressed support for the annexation of the West Bank, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently used a map that incorporated the West Bank into Israel.
Rights groups such as B'Tselem have criticized these policies, describing them as part of an “apartheid regime” aimed at displacing Palestinian residents through a coordinated effort involving both the Israeli government and illegal settler groups.
Israeli estimates suggest that over 720,000 settlers now live in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Tension has been running high across the occupied West Bank as Israel has pressed ahead with its brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which has killed more than 40,800 Palestinians, mostly women and children, since Oct. 7 last year.
At least 691 people have since been killed and more than 5,700 injured by Israeli fire in the West Bank, according to the Health Ministry.
The escalation followed a landmark opinion by the International Court of Justice on July 19 that declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land unlawful and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
*Writing by Mohammad Sio