Israeli settlers burned West Bank homes, residents say

Israeli settlers attacked the small Palestinian community of Khirbet al-Tuba in the occupied West Bank late on August 5, injuring people, burning homes and smashing the community's power source, residents said.

The Israeli military said it strongly condemned the raid and had responded after homes were set on fire and Palestinians were attacked in the area by Israeli civilians. It said several Palestinians were injured, including a girl and a woman, and that several structures were burned. The military said the suspects fled before forces arrived.

AFP journalists in the remote southern community saw buildings blackened by fire and smoke, the interiors of three homes completely burned and Hebrew graffiti spray-painted on remaining structures. They also saw that the dozen solar panels used by the isolated community had been smashed and rendered unusable.

Radwan Abu Jundi, whose house was torched, told AFP that about 40 settlers attacked the hamlet at around 10 pm, threw stones, beat his wife and daughter and set a room on fire. Local residents said five people were wounded, including Abu Jundi's wife and daughter and another child.

Khirbet al-Tuba is a community of about 100 people in Masafer Yatta, an area where shepherding communities face frequent settler violence and home demolitions by the military, which has declared parts of the area an army firing zone.

The army said it would investigate. Palestinians and rights groups complain that such investigations rarely lead to prosecutions and that violent settlers are able to act with impunity, with army support when clashes break out.

About 500,000 Israeli settlers live in the occupied West Bank, excluding Israeli-annexed East Jerusalem, among about three million Palestinians. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, are illegal under international law.