Settler celebration of life of Sarah turns into a torment for Palestinians in Hebron

Hebron activist Badee Dwaik sent us the video below showing a group of settlers celebrating the “feast of Sarah” on Thursday night in Hebron by threatening Palestinians who live in a locked-down portion of the city. Dwaik said some of the settlers carried guns, according to Palestinians who witnessed the action, and chanted “Am Yisrael Chai” — the people of Israel live.

“Israel is the only state in which there are two armies, namely the organized official army and the army of settlers armed with weapons,” Dwaik said. “Where Jewish settler festivals have become a hell for Palestinian families.”

The settlers, from the nearby illegal colony of Kiryat Arba, threw stones and empty bottles of wine at Palestinian homes in the Hebron Arif Jaber neighborhood. Earlier in the same neighborhood, a group of Israeli armed forces broke into a school, terrorizing students and arresting a teacher.

Activist Imad Abu Shamsiyah, a founder along with Dwaik of the group of Human Rights Defenders and a coordinator of the national campaign to lift the closures on Hebron, said that large numbers of settlers attacked the families of Hajj Mufid al-Sharbati and Jamila Shalaldeh in Shuhada Street, which is under lockdown by Israeli forces, and called for the deportation of Arabs. Abu Shamsiyah says that he and his 12-year-old son were chased in the streets by a group of settlers, some of them wearing masks to prevent identification.

“I appeal to international human rights and media organizations and Western governments that provide pressure on Israel to respect the values of human rights because the issue has become serious and a matter of life or death,” Abu Shamsiyah said.