Israeli Settlers Injure Three Palestinians With Pepper Gas South of Hebron

Three Palestinians were injured after an attack by Israeli settlers in Masafar Yatta, south of Hebron, where a group of armed settlers threw stones at a vehicle carrying several citizens near Khirbat al-Fakheit, shattering its windows and forcing it to stop.

The attackers then sprayed pepper gas directly at the passengers, causing severe suffocation and skin irritation for Imad Ragheb Houshieh, Jibril Salameh, and Maher Younis, who were taken to a hospital for treatment.

Agence Media Palestine

In a separate incident in the same area, other settlers attacked the home of citizen Yusuf Shnaraan in the Wadi al-Raheem area with stones, breaking windows and damaging contents while no injuries were reported.

WAFA also described the same pattern in Masafer Yatta, saying the three Palestinians suffocated from tear gas on Thursday after being attacked by Israeli colonists, and that activist Osama Makhamreh told WAFA the colonists sprayed pepper spray directly at the passengers.

In the occupied West Bank, Anadolu Ajansı reported that three Palestinians, including a child, were wounded Saturday in two separate attacks by Israeli settlers, with the head of the local council Amin Abu Alia saying gunfire was still ongoing on the south side of the village of al-Mughayyir.

Anadolu added that the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said a man was injured after being violently beaten by settlers in the Masafer Yatta area, and that Israeli army forces blocked access to its medical teams as they tried to render aid.

Anadolu Ajansı

The Anadolu report also described footage showing Israeli soldiers assaulting a Palestinian man inside his vehicle in Beit Furik, east of Nablus, with the mayor Aref Hanni identifying the victim as Mohammed Al-Shouli in his forties.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera’s Gaza-war context was echoed in the Anadolu piece, which said violence in the West Bank has intensified since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, a conflict that lasted two years and was marked by mass killings, arrests, forced displacements, and an expansion of settlements.

The Anadolu report framed the broader stakes by citing official Palestinian data that these acts of violence left 1,116 dead and about 11,500 wounded, and included the arrest of nearly 22,000 people across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

In the same vein, Yeni Şafak linked the escalation of settlement attacks to fears of annexation and displacement, warning that continuation of the attacks paves the way for Israel to formally declare the annexation of the West Bank.

Yeni Şafak said annexation would threaten the possibility of establishing the independent Palestinian state envisioned by international legitimacy resolutions, and it added that the crisis has its roots in 1948 when the State of Israel was established on lands occupied by armed Zionist groups that committed massacres against Palestinians and displaced at least 750,000 of them.

The WAFA account of the Masafer Yatta incident also underscored immediate consequences on the ground, noting that the three injured were transferred to the hospital for treatment after pepper spray caused severe suffocation and skin irritation.