Illegal Squatters attack Palestinian woman and her children in Hebron

May 10, 2015 11:48 A.M. (Updated: May 10, 2015 11:21 A.M.)

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(MaanImages/File)

HEBRON (Ma'an) -- A group of Jewish settlers physically assaulted a Palestinian woman and her young children in the Old City of Hebron in the southern West Bank late Saturday, a local human rights group said.A spokesman for the Hebron-based group Human Rights Defenders, Badee Dweik, said that the assault took place during an attack by settlers on Palestinian homes in the Old City's Tel Rumeida neighborhood.

 

Dweik said that Mirvat Abu Tuama was walking home with her children Hazim, 10, Rahaf, 8, Lujayn, 5, and Liyan, 4, when they were chased and attacked by the settlers. Settlers were also reported to have hurled stones at the home of Yasser Abu Markhiyya in Tel Rumeida. 

 

Another group of settlers attacked a Palestinian teenage girl, Madlin Abu Shamsiyya, while she was trying to capture video footage of them attacking the home of Itidal Qiwar.

 

The attacks come less than a week after Jewish settlers harassed a delegation touring Hebron's Old City that included the head of the Palestinian National Union for Football Jibril al-Rajoub and South African politician and anti-racism activist Tokyo Sexwale.Sexwale, who was imprisoned for 13 years on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, said that life for Palestinians in Hebron seemed to him intolerable and that he admired the Palestinians' determination to remain on their land.Around 700 settlers live in 80 homes in the center of Hebron, surrounded by nearly 200,000 Palestinians.

 

The settlements -- illegal under international law -- are protected by the Israeli army in the tightly controlled city, where many streets are off limits to Palestinians. 

 

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