Eight activists were participating as part of a Palestinian grassroots campaign called Defend Palestine, which calls on international volunteers to travel to the Israeli-occupied West Bank to protect Palestinians from Israeli settler attacks.
Two Americans and a German national were taken to hospital with suspected fractures after the attack, their campaign said, adding that another American volunteer suffered minor injuries. One of the Palestinian farmers was hospitalized.
They said they were accompanying Palestinian farmers to their olive fields, which they haven’t been able to access since October because of attacks by Israeli settlers. At some point, the group was approached by several young settlers on a hill.
“They sort of stood there for a while and then they came up to our group of international volunteers and they started hitting us with these thick wooden sticks almost like baseball bats,” Chen said.
Videos recorded by the activists show them trying to retreat as they were attacked. One of them immediately falls to the ground, another tries to shield himself with his arms as he is struck, and at least one is kicked in the leg and hit with a rock hurled by an attacker.
“We were doing nothing,” the Hummel said. “Our hands were up and we were backing up and trying to protect each other. So eventually, we tried to keep moving back because we had been hit so many times.”
Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 war and soon started settling Jews on the land. There are currently more than 700,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The international community however considers the area to be occupied and Israeli settlements there illegal. The Palestinians want the territory for a future independent state.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ top court, said Friday that Israel’s presence in the West Bank and East Jerusalem is illegal, in an unprecedented opinion that called on Israel to end its occupation. It called on Israel to cease new settlement activity, evacuate settlers and make reparations for the damage caused.
‘Dire need’ for international protection
The IDF said it condemns any acts of violence, adding that its soldiers were sent to the scene and that it will operate to maintain security in what it considers its jurisdiction. It added that soldiers were dispatched to the scene and fired warning shots into the air, causing the attackers to flee.
But the activists said that when the soldiers arrived, they immediately pointed their guns at a Palestinian man who was accompanying the volunteers and fired shots in his direction.
The injured activists were taken for treatment by the Palestinian Red Crescent to a hospital in Nablus.
Pictures taken at the hospital showed the victims with multiple cuts and bruises across their bodies. The face of Hummel, the German activist, was severely swollen on the right side.
Mohammed Khatib, an organizer with the Defend Palestine campaign, said: “The attack today, not even 24 hours after the ICJ ruled that Israeli occupation is illegal and that settlers enjoy impunity when exercising violence, serves as further proof for the dire need for international civil protection in Palestine.”
Chen said the group didn’t expect to encounter violence but was “aware of settler violence” against Palestinians.
“Our injuries are very minor compared to what the Palestinians face every day,” she said.