Israeli cops disguised as Palestinians attacked by Jewish teens

[maz]

Israeli cops disguised as Palestinians attacked by Jewish teens in no-Arabs-allowed settlement, 2 arrested

Two teenage boys from the Jewish-only settlement of Bat Ayin have been arrested for attacking a pair of cops disguised as Palestinian laborers in what the right-wing legal aid group defending them has condemned as a "provocation."

The youths pounced on the officers dressed as Palestinian technicians, hitting and pepper-spraying them, after the men refused to give a clear explanation of why they were walking around the center of the West Bank settlement on Tuesday, local media reported. They were subsequently taken in for questioning and, their lawyer Moshe Polsky has claimed, held overnight. The boys' names were not released as they were both minors.

Last month, an unnamed security official highlighted a sharp uptick in settler violence against Palestinians near Bat Ayin over the preceding weeks, telling the Times of Israel that the perpetrators were coming to the settlement from Yitzhar, another recent hotspot for ethnically-motivated violence, because of a military crackdown on the anti-Palestinian attacks in that area. In Bat Ayin last month, two settlers were arrested for throwing rocks at a Palestinian vehicle, and Palestinian bus driver was attacked while driving through the settlement in November.