Israeli Settlers Torch Cars in Christian West Bank Village, Palestinians Say
It was the latest in a series of recent settler attacks on the village near Ramallah, where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered.
Taybeh is the only entirely Christian village in the Muslim-majority West Bank and home to a brewery popular with tourists and foreign diplomats.
The Israeli military said it sent forces to the village after receiving a report that suspects had set fire to Palestinian property. It said it has opened an investigation.
The West Bank has seen a rise in settler violence since Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack out of Gaza triggered the war there.
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Arab News
42 minutes ago
- Arab News
Aid truck drivers face increasing danger from desperate crowds, armed gangs
GAZA CITY: Truck drivers trying to deliver aid inside Gaza say their work has become increasingly dangerous in recent months as people have grown desperately hungry and violent gangs have filled a power vacuum left by the territory's rulers. Crowds of hungry people routinely rip aid off the backs of moving trucks, the local drivers said. Some trucks are hijacked by armed men working for gangs who sell the aid in Gaza's markets for exorbitant prices. Israeli troops often shoot into the chaos, they said. Drivers have been killed in the mayhem. Since March, when Israel ended a ceasefire in its war with Hamas and halted all imports, the situation has grown increasingly dire in the territory of some 2 million Palestinians. International experts are now warning of a 'worst-case scenario of famine' in Gaza. Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. Under heavy international pressure, Israel last week announced measures to let more aid into Gaza. Though aid groups say it's still not enough, getting even that amount from the border crossings to the people who need it is difficult and extremely dangerous, the drivers said. Thousands of people packed the road around them on Monday as two trucks entered southern Gaza, as shown in AP video. Young men overwhelmed the trucks, standing on the cabs' roofs, dangling from the sides, and clambering over each other onto the truck beds to grab boxes even as the trucks slowly kept driving. 'Some of my drivers are scared to go transfer aid because they're concerned about how they'll untangle themselves from large crowds of people,' said Abu Khaled Selim, vice president of the Special Transport Association, a nonprofit group that works with private transportation companies across the Gaza Strip and advocates for truck drivers' rights. Selim said his nephew, Ashraf Selim, a father of eight, was killed July 29 by a stray bullet when Israeli forces opened fire on crowds climbing onto the aid truck he was driving. Shifa Hospital officials said they received his body with an apparent gunshot to the head. Earlier in the war, aid deliveries were safer because, with more food getting into Gaza, the population was less desperate. Hamas-run police had been seen securing convoys and went after suspected looters and merchants who resold aid at exorbitant prices, Now, 'with the situation unsecured, everything is permissible,' said Selim, who appealed for protection so the aid trucks could reach warehouses. The UN does not accept protection from Israeli forces, saying it would violate its rules of neutrality, and said that given the urgent need for aid, it would accept that hungry people were going to grab food off the back of the trucks as long as they weren't violent. Flooding Gaza with renewed aid would ease the desperation and make things safer for the drivers, said Juliette Touma, communications director at UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. Ali Al-Derbashi, 22, had been an aid truck driver for more than a year and a half, but he quit after his last trip three weeks ago due to the increasing danger, he said. Some people taking aid off the trucks are now carrying cleavers, knives, and axes, he said. He was once ambushed and forcibly redirected to an area designated by Israel as a conflict zone in its war against Hamas. There, everything was stolen, including his truck's fuel and batteries, and his tires were shot out, he said. He was beaten and his phone was stolen. 'We put our lives in danger for this. We leave our families for two or three days every time. And we don't even have water or food ourselves,' he said. In addition to the danger, the drivers faced humiliation from Israeli forces, he said, who put them through 'prolonged searches, unclear instructions, and hours of waiting.' The war began Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 others. Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to the latest figures by Gaza's Health Ministry, which doesn't distinguish between militants and civilians and operates under the Hamas government. The threats come from everywhere Nahed Sheheibr, head of the Special Transport Association, said the danger for the drivers comes from everywhere. He accused Israel of detaining drivers and using them as human shields. In recent days, men linked to a violent Gaza clan fired at drivers, injuring one, and looted a convoy of 14 trucks, he said. They later looted a convoy of 10 trucks. Hossni Al-Sharafi, who runs a trucking company and was an aid driver himself, said he is only allowed to use drivers who have no political affiliation and have been approved by Israel to transport aid from crossings. Al-Sharafi said he was detained by Israeli forces for more than 10 days last year while transporting aid from the southern Kerem Shalom crossing and interrogated about where the truck was headed and how the aid was being distributed. Israeli officials did not comment on the accusations. Some drivers spoke of being shot at repeatedly by armed gangs. Others said their trucks were routinely picked clean — even of the wooden pallets— by waves of desperate people, many of whom were fighting each other for the food, while Israeli troops were shooting. Hungry families who miss out on the aid throw stones at the trucks in anger. Anas Rabea said the moment he pulled out of the Zikkim crossing last week, his aid truck was overwhelmed by a crowd. 'Our instructions are to stop, because we don't want to run anyone over,' he said. 'It's crazy. You have people climbing all over the cargo, over the windows. It's like you're blind, you can't see out.' After the crowd had stripped everything, he drove another few hundred meters and was stopped by an armed gang that threatened to shoot him. They searched the truck and took a bag of flour he had saved for himself, he said. 'Every time we go out, we get robbed,' he said. 'It's getting worse day by day.'
Arab News
3 hours ago
- Arab News
Israeli forces raid Palestinian family's home in north Jerusalem, accompanied by bulldozers
LONDON: Israeli forces on Tuesday raided the home of a Palestinian family in the Bayader area of Hizma, a town north of occupied East Jerusalem. Tear gas was used against residents, resulting in dozens of cases of difficulty breathing among women and children, the Wafa News agency reported. The three-story building that was targeted belongs to the family of detainee Ahmed Fayez Subaih Al-Khatib and is designated for demolition. The Israeli forces arrived, accompanied by bulldozers, just hours before son Fayez Sbeih was due to get married, and gave the family an hour to evacuate, Wafa said. According to local media reports the demolition did not take place, however, as the Subaih family's lawyer filed a legal appeal, and the Israeli forces withdrew about five hours after they arrived. Residents of Hizma have faced repeated attacks by Israeli forces targeting Palestinian areas near Jerusalem, Wafa reported. The town is close to an Israeli military checkpoint and the illegal settlement of Pisgat Zeev. It is next to two main roads leading to Jericho in the south and Ramallah in the north.
Arab News
7 hours ago
- Arab News
Gaza civil defense says Israeli attacks kill 26
GAZA CITY: Gaza's civil defense agency said 26 people were killed by Israeli gunfire and air strikes on Tuesday, including 14 who were waiting near an aid distribution site inside the Palestinian territory. Civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that eight people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid near the south Gaza city of Khan Yunis. Six more people were killed and 21 injured by Israeli fire in central Gaza while waiting for food near a distribution center, according to Bassal. The Israeli army told AFP it was looking into the incidents. Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the tolls and details provided by the civil defense agency and other parties. Thousands of Gazans gather daily near food distribution points across Gaza, including four belonging to the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Its operations have been marred by chaotic scenes and near-daily reports of Israeli forces firing on those waiting to collect rations. Israeli restrictions on the entry of goods and aid into Gaza since the start of the war nearly 22 months ago have led to shortages of food and essential goods, including medicine, medical supplies and fuel, which hospitals rely on to power their generators. Bassal said that five people were killed by a nightly air strike on a tent in Al-Mawasi in south Gaza, an area Israeli authorities designated as a safe zone early on in the war. 'It's said to be a green zone and it's safe, but it's not. They also say that the aid (distribution) is safe, but people die while obtaining aid,' said Adham Younes, who lost a relative in the strike. 'There's no safety within the Gaza Strip, everyone is exposed to death, everyone is subject to injury,' the 30-year-old told AFP. Mahmud Younes, another Gazan who said he witnessed the strike, said: ''We found women screaming — they were covered in blood. The entire family has been injured.' Bassal of the civil defense agency said that six more people were killed in a strike near Gaza City, and one in a strike near the southern city of Khan Yunis. The Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing and the largest armed force in Gaza, said in a statement Tuesday that they had bombarded an Israeli command-and-control center in south Gaza's Morag Axis, an Israeli-controlled corridor.
