In village battered by settler violence, Palestinian still in coma nearly month after attack |
For nearly a month Zahran Shanabla has been in a coma in a Nablus hospital, where he was brought after being found left for dead following a brutal attack by extremist Israeli settlers.
He spent three weeks sedated and intubated in Rafidia Hospital. According to his brother, on April 25 his condition improved slightly: He was transferred out of intensive care and is now breathing on his own. But he has yet to open his eyes or speak.
Doctors don’t know if he ever will.
Prior to his hospitalization, Shanabla, 32, had worked at a poultry farm on the outskirts of the village of Qusra, south of Nablus.
On the night of April 4, according to Palestinian reports, dozens of settlers attacked the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, setting fire to the poultry farm on the village’s outskirts.
Shanabla, 32, was one of several workers on site at the time of the attack. Initially reported missing, and feared abducted by the assailants, he was found some two hours later unconscious but alive. A photo taken at the time shows him lying next to a patch of dried blood, with bruises visible on his face. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent he had sustained severe head injuries.
The arson and beating in Qusra was only one of dozens such assaults carried out by extremist settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank in recent months. While injuries in such attacks are not uncommon, few have been left as badly hurt as Shanabla — though some have been killed on rare occasions, including in Qusra.
With Shanabla uncommunicative, his family can only speculate about what transpired during the attack that left him in his current state. Nor do they know if he will ever recover.
“The doctors don’t know what his condition will be going forward,” his brother said.
The brother spoke only briefly with The Times of Israel, and relatives have largely refrained from speaking to the media since the incident. Like others affected by settler attacks, they fear that media exposure could lead to them being targeted, according to a Palestinian journalist who requested anonymity.
Palestinians and other critics say Israeli authorities have failed to crack down on settler violence in any serious way, allowing the phenomenon to metastasize to unprecedented proportions.
The IDF said immediately following the attack that “troops were dispatched to the area following reports of Palestinians throwing stones........