Dozens of armed Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian homes and farmland in the occupied West Bank's Hebron governorate on Monday, injuring six residents, according to activist Osama Makhamra.
Attack on Umm Al-Khair village
Makhamra said around 30 armed settlers attacked homes in the village of Umm Al-Khair in Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills, after the Israeli military closed the village's main entrance. According to Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, the settlers carried out the attack under Israeli military protection.
One of the targeted homes belongs to Salem Al-Hathaleen. Israeli forces declared the area around the house a closed military zone for two days, barring family members from reaching sanitation facilities and a livestock pen, leaving animals without food.
Damage to property and farmland
Settlers also cut fencing around farmland and severed power lines supplying the home of Ayoub Al-Masri in the Khallet Al-Hummus area, south of Yatta city.
Broader tensions in Hebron
The attack comes amid broader tensions in Hebron. On June 17, Israel approved the expansion of a Jewish school for settlers in the center of Hebron, a move critics say violates a decades-old agreement. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the plan a day after saying he had canceled an arrangement that gave the Palestinian municipality authority over some planning and construction near Hebron's historic center, which houses a contested holy site.
