Israeli soldiers, settlers brutally assault Palestinian in Hebron

Israeli soldiers and settlers Thursday brutally assaulted a Palestinian in the Old City of Hebron.

A video footage that has gone viral online showed Israeli troops assisting armed settlers in assaulting and beating Waseem Mansour Jaber, who did nothing, except for defending his family in the Jaber neighborhood of the old city of Hebron, where the colonial settlement of Kiryat Arba is located.

Twenty two years ago, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein broke into the Ibrahimi Mosque and opened fire at Palestinian Muslim worshippers, killing 29. Four Palestinians were killed on the same day in the clashes that broke out around the Mosque in response to the massacre.

In the aftermath, the mosque, known to Jews as Tomb of the Patriarchs, was divided in two, with the larger part turned into a synagogue while heavy scrutiny was imposed on the Palestinians and areas closed completely to them, including an important market and the main street, Shuhada Street.

The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.

Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment.

Settler violence against Palestinians and their property is routine in the West Bank and is rarely prosecuted by Israeli authorities.

There are over 700,000 Israeli settlers living in colonial settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency

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