Child, four women among Palestinians injured in West Bank pogroms

Attacks across occupied West Bank follow a religious edict by a prominent far-right rabbi permitting the seizure of Palestinian olives. Save Share Several Palestinians have been injured by Israeli settlers, and farmers have been arrested by Israeli forces during Israelipogromsacross the occupied West Bank. Four women and a child were among six people injured on Saturday when Israeli settlers attacked residents in Ma’in village in the Masafer Yatta area, south of Hebron, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). In the town of Deir Ammar, west of Ramallah, Israeli forces opened fire on farmers picking olives, forcing them to leave their land, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa. In the same area, Israeli settlers shot and injured two Palestinians. In the village of Tuqu, southeast of Bethlehem, Israeli forces fired on a Palestinian civilian vehicle. In the village of Kafr Malek, northeast of Ramallah, settlers raided a farm at dawn and killed about 20 sheep, Mayor Najeh Rustum told Al Jazeera. He added that Israeli forces had raided the village the previous night as well, firing tear gas canisters that ignited a fire in a house and caused material damage. Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, said settlers destroyed olive trees across the Beit Furik plain, east of Nablus, in the northern West Bank while Israeli forces arrested landowners and olive pickers. In the village of Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, she said, settlers under army protection fired live ammunition at farmers in the al-Hariq area to prevent them from completing the harvest and forced them off their land. Settlers also smashed the vehicle of international activist Jonathan Budlak in the village and threw stones at a farmer’s vehicle. In the village of Burqa near Ramallah, Israeli forces and settlers prevented farmers from picking olives, Odeh said, adding that settlers attacked farmers in the Wadi al-Sha’er area, southeast of Salfit. “What we see, whether it’s in Beit Furik, Kafr Malek, Deir Jarir or elsewhere in the occupied West Bank, is part of a campaign,” Odeh said. She said settlers have become increasingly emboldened, publicly advertising attack campaigns on social media platforms....