Settlers wound three at al-Mughayyir, beat a father and son

Three Palestinians were hurt on Friday night when Israeli settlers attacked al-Mughayyir, a village northeast of Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, the Palestine Red Crescent Society and local sources said.

Settlers entered the western side of the village and tried to drive off livestock while Israeli soldiers gave them cover, according to those accounts. One resident was shot and wounded by the soldiers. Villagers who came out to stop the theft succeeded in turning it back, and the settlers then opened fire on the sheep, hitting two of the animals.

The settlers returned later to attack houses, again with Israeli forces present and amid heavy live fire, the sources said. Red Crescent crews treated three people during the assault: one hit by live ammunition and two who had been badly beaten.

In the Bethlehem area the same night, a 45-year-old man, Raed Khalil, and his 24-year-old son Mahmoud were injured at Husan, west of the city, when settlers set on them with the butts of rifles and pistols while the two were on their own land, local reports said. Settlers were also reported to have wrecked a Palestinian farm near Arraba.

Fire has become one of the standard instruments of these attacks. Settlers and Israeli soldiers set off 900 fires in the occupied West Bank between the start of 2023 and 10 July this year, the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said, burning Palestinian land, homes, vehicles and other property. Settlers were responsible for about 89 percent of them and soldiers for the remaining 11 percent.

The pattern in al-Mughayyir is the one that recurs across the hill villages: the target is not a building but a livelihood. Sheep, olive groves and access to grazing land are what hold a village in place, and an attack that shoots the animals rather than takes them is aimed at the household's ability to stay.