TEL AVIV, Israel: Dozens of masked men armed with sticks attacked a plant nursery and beat and injured a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank, according to people who saw the attack and video footage obtained by The Associated Press.
Video filmed by security cameras shows men dressed mostly in black, faces covered, with several hitting and kicking a man on the ground.
Two people who witnessed the attack and are members of the family that own the facility said Israeli settlers beat 67-year-old Basim Saleh Yassin as he was trying to flee the nursery located in the northern West Bank village of Deir Sharaf. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
They said Yassin is in the hospital and has broken bones in his hand and other injuries on his face, chest and back. Four cars were burned and destroyed at the nursery.
The attack is the latest in rising settler violence in the West Bank. Settler attacks ramped up during the Palestinian olive harvest season in October and early November and have continued since.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the perpetrators “a handful of extremists” and urged law enforcement to pursue them for “the attempt to take the law into their own hands.” But rights groups and Palestinians say the problem is far greater than a few bad apples, and attacks have become a daily phenomenon across the territory.
Israel’s army said that it dispatched soldiers to the Shavei Shomron junction — close to the area of the attack — following reports of dozens of masked Israelis vandalizing property. The army said it apprehended three suspects who were transferred to the police station for questioning. It said security forces condemn violence of any kind.
According to one of the family members that owns the German-Palestinian run nursery, it was the the third time in a year that the facility was attacked.
The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said.
When workers saw the settlers coming on Thursday, they fled, but as Yassin is deaf he couldn’t hear people warning him to leave, said the family member.
In the video, Yassin runs from a group of masked people before falling to the ground.
One man kicks him and another hits him twice with what appears to be a stick. Yassin stays on his knees as he’s struck again and then places his hands on the ground on all fours. As the men are leaving, one kicks him in the head while others strike him again until he’s seen lying on the pavement.