Several Israeli residents attacked a group of Palestinians and foreign tourists near the West Bank city of Jericho on Friday, according to video of the incident and a woman who was present.
In the clip, a young Jewish man can be seen swinging a club at the hikers, who step back and scream as he attacks them.
An unnamed security source told Haaretz daily that the settlers also attacked the group with pepper spray.
The source also said that soldiers who arrived at the scene escorted the pedestrians back to their bus after the attack, which took place near the village of Badu al-Muarajat in the Jordan Valley.
Neither the army nor the police commented on the incident and no arrests were made.
An Italian woman on the hike said that three other members of the group – including Palestinian, American, Italian and French nationals – required hospital treatment following the attack. She said that six very young settlers were present during the attack.
“When we were near the end [of the hike], the settlers arrived with clubs and pepper spray. They stopped us from walking and started attacking us,” the woman, identified only by her first name, Samira, told Haaretz.
She also said that she had a club in her hand during the filming.
An incident of settler violence in the Jordan Valley yesterday: Palestinians record 3 settlers attacking Palestinian travelers and tourists from abroad with sticks in the Jericho area. No arrest so far. pic.twitter.com/W4s2aKZ5Ly
— Or Heller (@OrHeller) January 14, 2023
The incident came after a sharp increase in settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank in 2022, with 840 such incidents last year, compared to 446 the year before and 353 in 2020.
The attacks included stone-pelting attacks and acts of vandalism against Palestinians commonly referred to as “price tag” attacks. The perpetrators saw them as retribution for Palestinian violence or Israeli government policies hostile to the settler movement.
The IDF has stated that the 2022 settlement attacks were not only coming primarily from settlements or illegal outposts considered extremist, such as the Yitzhar area near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, but also from areas believed to be moderate. .
