Four days of settler violence in Burin and the Nablus area

03 April 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

On Friday afternoon at around 4.30 pm, three young men from the village of Burin, south of Nablus, were attacked by two settlers while picking “akoob” (a plant used in cooking) in the mountains. The men were around 200 meters away from the illegal settlement of Bracha when two settlers attacked them by throwing stones. Ten minutes later, 35 more masked settlers, two of them carrying M16 rifles, came down to attack the three men. When the villagers of Burin came to protect the men by throwing stones, settlers started firing live ammunition at them, forcing them to hide behind rocks.

One settler shouted at the villagers, in Arabic: “We should burn you, you are rubbish!”

At approximately 5.30 pm, one hour after the settlers had arrived, the Israeli army came and forced the villagers to leave their land, while the settlers were allowed to stay.

Again, yesterday at around 10.30 am, five villagers were attacked by settlers while they were constructing a house. 18 settlers, of whom two were carrying guns, attacked the workers by throwing stones at them and their tractors and prevented them from doing their work. The workers called the Red Cross and asked them to call the Israeli army to come and stop the settlers. Around 30 minutes later the army came, but the settlers had already left. When the villagers told the soldiers what have happened, the soldiers called them liars, telling them that the settlers would never attack on a Saturday since it is the holy day for Jewish people.
Then at around 4 pm, the settlers came back and attacked the workers again, throwing stones at them and their families. Again by the time the military had come, the settlers were already gone, and instead of helping the villagers, the soldiers prevented the workers from driving their tractors to get water and soil some 100 meters up the road, threatening to shoot them.

Today at 9.30 am around 30 settlers, of whom three were carrying guns, attacked the five workers once again with stones. 30 minutes later, the Israeli army arrived with four military jeeps, but as in the previous incidents, the settlers had left just before the army came. The two houses under construction belong to the two brothers Zeid and Ghassan Amran. Their family have been under constant attack since they started to build the first house last year. Ghassan Amran lives with his family in one of the houses, he is scared that something will happen to his children, three boys aged three, seven and eight years old.

The village of Burin is surrounded by the illegal Israeli settlements of Bracha in the north, and Yitzar in the south. The settlers make regular visits to the village and in previous incidents have destroyed olive trees, stolen and shot animals, set crops and houses and cars on fire, destroyed homes, shot at people with live ammunition and fired rockets at the village.

In other similar incidents in the Nablus area, according to Ma’an News Agency, Imad Husni Salahat, 47, was severely beaten by settlers in Kawkab Salah near the illegal settlement of Ma’ale Efrayim yesterday. The same day, settlers from the illegal settlement of Yitzar destroyed water pipes south of the village of Madama.

Also, on the night between Wednesday and Thursday, in the village of Aqraba, south east of Nablus, 400 olive trees that had been planted three months earlier, were uprooted and stolen by settlers from the illegal settlement of Itamar. The week before 300 olive trees were uprooted and three wells were destroyed in a settler attack on the village land.