CPTnet
24 March 2013
SOUTH HEBRON HILLS: Settlers from Mitzpe Yair settlement attack Palestinian shepherds
in Masafer Yatta during Purim
On Sunday 16 March 2014, during the
Jewish holiday of Purim, Operation Dove reported that Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians and internationals on
Palestinian fields near the outpost of Mitzpe Yair, which is adjacent
to Firing Zone 918 in Masafer Yatta.
A settler armed with an iron pipe
began threatening four shepherds and their flock at about 9:00 a.m., then ran
off when two more shepherds and two internationals arrived and began filming.
At 9:30, eight settlers arrived and began violently chasing the flocks
toward the valley below the outpost. Palestinians called the Israeli
police, and another two internationals, members of the South Hebron Hills
Popular Committee, and the representatives of the human rights organization
B’tselem also arrived.
When the police arrived, they took one
international and one of the shepherds, Nail Abuaram—who filmed the
incident—to the police station in Kiryat Arba settlement. The police demanded the internationals
show them the video and threatened Nail Abuaram with arrest if he did not agree
to sign a paper stating that for a period of fifteen days he will not get
closer than 450 meters to the area where the harassment took place.
Police also told the settler who attacked the Palestinians with an iron
pipe to stay 200 meters away from the spot where the harassment took place for
the same amount of time.
[Note: According to the Fourth Geneva
Convention, the Hague Regulations, the International Court of Justice, and
several United Nations resolutions, all Israeli settlements and outposts in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories are illegal. Most settlement outposts, including Havat Ma’on (Hill 833),
are considered illegal also under Israeli law.]
