A Palestinian man inspects a vehicle that was damaged following an attack by Israeli settlers in a village near Bethlehem [Getty]
An Al Jazeera journalist was shot and injured by Israeli forces in the West Bank on Tuesday, as a military siege on Beit Ummar continued for a second day amid continued settler attacks in the occupied territory.
Fadi Yassin was covering a demonstration by residents of the Nur Shams refugee camp, on the edge of Tulkarm, when he was shot, which comes after scores of media workers were targeted by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank.
“Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi Yassin was shot in the leg by Israeli forces in the city of Tulkarem,” Al Jazeera reported.
Yassin is being treated in hospital for gunshot wounds, but is believed to be in a stable condition.
“His condition is stable, and we managed to control the bleeding,” said Palestinian Red Crescent Society paramedic Abdullah Nairat.
“A bullet entered his right leg from the outside, passed through, and hit his left thigh.”
Beit Ummar besieged
In the southern West Bank, Israeli forces continued to impose a siege on the town of Beit Ummar for a second consecutive day on Wednesday.
The Israeli army cut off the town’s entrance and after forcibly evicting residents turned several homes into military outposts, journalist Ibrahim al-Alami told The New Arab’s sister site, Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
The siege on Beit Ummar came after a young man from the town, and another from the city of Hebron, carried out an attack at an Israeli settlement area nearby.
Walid Muhammad Khalil Sabbarneh and Imran Ibrahim Imran Al-Atrash, both 18, were shot and killed on Tuesday by Israeli forces near the Gush Etzion junction, after they were accused of a car ramming and stabbing that killed one Israeli man and injured others.
The bodies of the two Palestinians are still being held by Israeli authorities.
Alami told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed that Israeli forces raided Sabbarneh’s family home and arrested his father and two maternal uncles.
Around 100 residents from Beit Ummar were detained and taken to the town’s sports field where they were interrogated.
In Hebron, Israeli forces raided the Abu Kteila neighbourhood and conducted field interrogations with several families. Soldiers also raided Atrash’s family home, arresting his father.
Israel has long subjected Palestinian families to collective punishment following attacks, including arrests and home demolitions, measures condemned by rights groups.
Palestinians say their attacks are only retaliatory as Israeli forces and settlers continue their brutal occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, with raids on Palestinian towns.
Separately in the northern West Bank, Palestinian medics said a 14-year-old child is in a critical condition after he was shot in the head on Tuesday during a military raid in the town of Al-Yamun, west of Jenin.
Settler violence
On Wednesday morning, a group of extremist Jewish Israeli settlers assaulted workers and a guard at the Ein Samiya quarry, east of Ramallah in the central West Bank.
Elsewhere, stone-throwing settlers damaged homes, vehicles, and solar panels in Tumusaya, northeast of Ramallah, Abdullah Abu Awad told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed.
Hassan Mleihat of the Al-Baidar Organisation for the Defence of Bedouin Rights said that settlers raided the village of Shalal Al-Awja in the eastern West Bank and roamed the streets in what was described as a provocative act against the local Palestinian population.
The Israeli government has come under mounting pressure from the international community in recent weeks to curb settler raids against Palestinians, with several Israeli political and military officials making rare condemnations of the attacks.
At least 1,003 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces or settlers since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, according to the Palestinian health ministry. These raids have intensified in recent months.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said recently that October saw the highest monthly number of settler attacks since records began in 2006. OCHA documented more than 260 attacks, averaging eight incidents per day.
Israel’s far-right government, meanwhile, is pushing forward with the construction of illegal settlements in the territory, occupied since 1967.