Death of ATV driver unleashes new outburst of settler attacks on Palestinians |
Scattered among the debris in the charred living room of Samer al-Amar’s home on the edge of the village of Deir al-Hatab on Monday were books used to prepare for the Palestinian matriculation exam.
On Sunday night, al-Amar’s daughter had been using the books to study for the upcoming tests. Then the settlers showed up.
“My daughter was studying in a room closer to the outside. She came into my room and told me they were throwing stones at the house,” al-Amar told The Times of Israel.
Al-Amar stepped into the yard and immediately saw that his property was surrounded.
“We shut the door,” al-Amar recalled. “They threw Molotov cocktails and poured fuel so that we would die inside the house.”
The family, including al-Amar’s wife and their four children aged 15 to 24, ran to the roof, which he said was “the only way out.” As people from the nearby village arrived to help the family, the settlers fled and the family managed to escape unharmed.
But the house suffered extensive damage and al-Amar’s car was completely destroyed.
The arson attack was one of dozens of settler assaults to take place in the wake of the death of an Israeli teen in a road collision Saturday, a widespread outbreak of Jewish terrorism that has left several people hospitalized and homes and businesses ransacked across much of the West Bank.
On Monday, the military responded to the violence and international criticism of its failure to crack down on extremists by announcing that it was redeploying a battalion from fighting against Hezbollah in Lebanon to the West Bank.
Critics note that Israel’s security forces can be part of the problem, sometimes either taking part in the attacks or standing by without interfering as they unfold.
The violence began Saturday night following the death of Yehuda Sherman, an 18-year-old settler activist who had been riding an ATV near the illegal outpost where he lived outside Jenin.
Much of the incident remains under dispute, but what is clear is that Sherman was killed when his ATV collided with a vehicle being driven by a Palestinian, in a part of the West Bank that is supposed to be off limits to Israelis. The Palestinian driver and Sherman’s brother, who had also been on the ATV, were injured.
Police initially classified the incident as a traffic accident, but the army and police later said they were examining the possibility that the Palestinian driver had deliberately rammed the ATV. In response to a query from The Times of Israel, police said the investigation is ongoing.
Even before then, settlers — some reportedly close to Sherman and his family — had claimed it was a terror attack, as did far-right leaders from the Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit parties.
Calls for revenge spread quickly, and within hours, Palestinians in a number of towns and villages were under attack.
On his X account, far-right settler activist Elisha Yered urged........