HEBRON– Israeli forces today assaulted Palestinian and international activists on a tour of the Tal Rumeida neighborhood in the southern West Bank city of Hebron and detained three, according to WAFA correspondent.
She said that the gun-toting soldiers intercepted a tour in solidarity of the neighborhood indigenous Palestinian inhabitants, brutally beating them and detaining three international activists.
The soldiers afterwards declared the area of the tour a closed military zone.
Youth Against Settlement, a nonpartisan group that documents settler attacks and colonial settlement activities in Hebron, posted an online video footage showing an armed soldier knocking a Jewish solidarity activist down to the ground in the neighborhood.
The Palestinian neighborhood is located in the Israeli-controlled area of the old town, known as H2, where several hundred extremist Jewish settlers are based. Israel heavily restricts movement and activity of Palestinians in H2 area while allowing the settlers free movement and access.
The city of Hebron, which houses the Ibrahimi Mosque, is home to roughly 160,000 Palestinian Muslims and about 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers who live in compounds heavily guarded by Israeli troops.
Israel has expelled the only international monitors protecting Hebron’s Palestinians from 800 heavily guarded settlers, one of whom committed the 1994 massacre that triggered their deployment.
Source: Palestine News and Information Agency