The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is “deeply concerned about the protracted and extremely violent attack on Palestinians in the West Bank village of Al Mughayyir” on Saturday, which saw 38-year-old Palestinian father of four Hamdi Taleb Na’asan “shot in the back and killed”

A statement published Tuesday said that “monitoring by our staff in the West Bank suggests that the killing took place after a group of up to 30 Israelis  – some of them armed – from the nearby Israeli outpost of Adei Ad first of all attacked Palestinian farmers in their fields, and then descended on the village itself where they used live ammunition to shoot at the villagers and their houses”.

According to the statement, “the confrontation led to six villagers being shot with live ammunition, leaving three of them in a serious condition”.

Although Israeli occupation forces “were stationed near the village and were immediately alerted to the attack, witnesses informed our staff – who visited the village yesterday – that it took some two hours before they intervened”.

Yet when soldiers “did finally intervene, the main focus of their action appears to have been to disperse the Palestinian villagers using teargas”.

The spokesperson added that “three more Palestinians were injured by live ammunition after the intervention of [Israeli occupation forces]”, but that “it is not clear at this point whether they were shot by settlers or by soldiers. In total, 20 villagers were injured during the course of the day”.

The UN statement added that “this violence took place in the context of a surge in settler violence in the West Bank, which has reached its highest levels since 2015”.

“Israel as the occupying power, is obliged under international humanitarian law to protect the Palestinian population from such attacks. Those responsible for settler violence must be brought to account”, the office concluded.

 

Source: Middle East Monitor