IOF troopers arrest Palestinian with two broken arms he used against jews

[yankeedoodle]

Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian man, breaking both his arms. Then the army arrested him.
While he was working on his land, a group of Israeli settlers armed with sticks, metal pipes, and M16s attacked Hafez Huraini and his son Muhammad. Hafez was badly injured, and both of his arms were broken. When a Palestinian ambulance arrived to evacuate him, the settlers slashed the tires, but the Israeli soldiers arrested Huraini, claiming he had hurt one of the settlers.
https://mondoweiss.net/2022/09/israeli-settlers-attacked-a-palestinian-man-breaking-both-his-arms-then-the-army-arrested-him/?ml_recipient=66224754098439451&ml_link=66224720484238423&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2022-09-14&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines

Hafez Huraini, 52, was working on his family's land with his son Muhammad on the outskirts of their village of at-Tuwani in Masafer Yatta, in the southern occupied West Bank, when a group of armed Israeli settlers from the nearby Havat Ma'on outpost attacked them.

"Five settlers attacked them, some had guns, at least one of them had an M16 rifle, and the others were carrying metal pipes. One of the settlers started hitting them with the metal pipe, breaking my dad's left arm," Sami Huraini, 24, Hafez's son, recounted to Mondoweiss.

"My dad fell to the ground, and they kept beating him, until they broke his right arm too," Sami said. "Then the settler with the gun started firing live bullets in the air."

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Sami, along with his neighbors, rushed to the scene, just a few hundred meters from his home, up a rugged hilltop. When they arrived and confronted the settlers, some retreated, while the armed settlers stayed.

Then came the army.

"Dozens of soldiers arrived at the scene after the settlers called them. My dad was lying on the ground, both his arms were broken, but the soldiers started hitting us and pushing us back while the settlers stood behind them," Sami recounted.

Sami said the settlers were "giving orders" to the soldiers, telling them to arrest his father and other residents of at-Tuwani at the scene.

As the Israeli soldiers continued to push around the Palestinians, an ambulance from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society arrived at the scene.

"The EMTs started treating my dad and giving him first aid. The whole time they were doing this the soldiers and settlers were pushing and shoving us," Sami said.

"When we picked my dad up on the stretcher and tried to put him on the ambulance, the soldiers started pushing us back, and saying they wanted to arrest him, because the settlers said he hit them," he continued.

According to Sami, Israeli soldiers and settlers blocked the doors of the ambulance to prevent medics from loading Hafez into the vehicle.

"They kept hitting us. We managed to finally get him inside the ambulance, but then the settlers pulled out a knife and stabbed the tires of the ambulance so it couldn't move," Sami said.

"The soldiers kept hitting us, and the settlers started destroying the trees on our land. Then the soldiers started firing tear gas and sound bombs at us and towards the houses in Tuwani," Sami said.

Even after a second ambulance from the PRCS arrived, Israeli soldiers refused to release Hafez for medical attention. According to Sami, the soldiers detained his father before evacuating him in an Israeli ambulance.

Israeli soldiers took Hafez to the Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba in southern Israel, where he was treated for two broken arms. According to Sami, Hafez was accompanied by armed soldiers the entire time, and was prevented from receiving visitors or from speaking to his lawyer.

After he was fitted with casts for his broken arms, Hafez was arrested.

The arrest
Late into the night on Monday, the Huraini family learned through their lawyer that their father had been taken to a detention center inside the Kiryat Arba settlement in Hebron, where he was to undergo interrogation.

The family's lawyer was allowed to speak to Hafez for a few minutes before he was taken in for questioning, though the lawyer was not allowed to be present during the interrogation.

According to Sami, the army is accusing his father of attacking a settler – a crime that could carry a sentence of several years in prison if he's officially charged and convicted.

Sami told Mondoweiss that during the attack on Hafez and Mohammed, as settlers beat them with metal pipes, Hafez attempted to defend himself against the settlers.

Haaretz reported that an Israeli settler sustained "serious head injuries" on Monday evening in what they described as "a brawl with a Palestinian" near the Havat Maon outpost.

Haaretz quoted an Israeli security official as saying that "a group of Palestinians approached the outpost, prompting two Israelis from the farm outpost to confront them. One of the Palestinians then attacked one of the Israelis, the source said, and the other Israeli fired in the air. Israeli troops then arrived at the scene to separate the two sides."

Haaretz also reported that the Palestinian "suspect" was "lightly injured" in the confrontation. They made no mention of the fact that both of Hafez's arms were broken by the settlers during the attack.

Sami said the accusations against his father were "untrue," emphasizing that it was the settlers who instigated the attack on Hafez, and that Hafez posed no threat to the settlers when they launched their attack.

"How could a man whose two arms are broken beat someone back?!" Sami said indignantly.

"They [settlers] were the ones who attacked my dad and beat him. They broke both of his arms. But my dad was the one who was arrested." Sami continued. "They're the ones who tried to kill him!"

"This is a clear representation of the Apartheid system that we live under," Sami said.

Sami said that the residents of at-Tuwani have long come under attacks from Israeli settlers, who are rarely ever arrested or held accountable for their crimes.

"We know from our experience that the settlers hold the power. They can turn their attacks around on us, and the army will arrest and imprison him [Hafez] for anything, on bogus charges based on settlers' false testimonies,"  he said.

Mondoweiss reached out to the army for a comment on Hafez's detention, and whether the settlers who attacked him were also being investigated. The army spokesperson had not responded to our request at the time of publication.

Human rights groups, like the Israeli group B'Tselem, report that the army frequently colludes with settlers in their attacks on Palestinians. "Instead of taking preventive action, the Israeli authorities aid and abet the settlers in harming Palestinians and using their land," the group said.

According to B'Tselem, since 2020, the group has documented 757 incidents of settler violence against Palestinians and their property.

In the rare case that an investigation is opened into settler violence against Palestinians, Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group that documents incidents of settler violence in the West Bank, says the vast majority of those investigations are closed.

The group says that 92% of investigations into ideological crimes against Palestinians are closed with no indictment filed.

'It was like a war zone'
Around the same time that Hafez Huraini was detained and evacuated in an ambulance, Israeli forces arrested two other Palestinains from Masafer Yatta who are still in custody.

Shortly after, dozens more Israeli troops raided the village of at-Tuwani, and began a massive detention operation that would last for hours into the early morning.

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"They closed down all entrances and exits to the village, and began raiding homes, and firing tear gas and sound bombs into people's homes and cars," Sami told Mondoweiss.

"They arrested dozens of young men from their homes and interrogated them at a makeshift military site set up near the entrance of the village. They just kept arresting people, interrogating them for a few hours, and then sending them back to their homes," Sami said.

"They beat people inside their homes, and  fired tear gas and sound bombs into our houses and cars. It was a war zone," he said.

Sami told Mondoweiss that the residents of at-Tuwani are accustomed to nightly raids by Israeli soldiers, and attacks by settlers from the nearby settlements and outposts. But he said the events of Monday night were "unreal."

"This is all part of their ethnic cleansing plans, and their efforts to scare us, intimidate us, and coerce us out of our homes," Sami said, referring to Israeli plans to force over 1,000 Palestinians in Masafer Yatta out of their homes to make way for an Israeli firing zone.

"The settlers can live happily while they attack us, and while the soldiers attack us. They want to threaten us, and scare us so we stop resisting their plans," Sami said. "But our willpower is strong."

As of Tuesday night local time, Israeli forces were raiding at-Tuwani for the second night in a row, siring tear gas and sound bombs at peoples homes.

[yankeedoodle]

Israeli settlers attacked my father on our land. The settlers are free, while my father sits in prison.
Every day, we face this injustice and apartheid not only from the settlers, soldiers, or police but from the entire system that uses violence to hurt us, steal our land and imprison us. We need your support now more than ever.
https://mondoweiss.net/2022/09/israeli-settlers-attacked-my-father-on-our-land-the-settlers-are-free-while-my-father-sits-in-prison/?ml_recipient=66496583858915215&ml_link=66496510470129136&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2022-09-17&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines

On the 12th of September at 4:00 pm, my father left our home in at-Tuwani to take his sheep to our land, beside which Israeli settlers have constructed the illegal settlement of Ma'on and the outpost of Havat Ma'on. Before leaving with the sheep, he told me to bring a bottle of water and some coffee and follow him to work, to help tend to the land and plant new trees.

After 15 minutes I followed behind him, along with the water and coffee, and an international activist friend of mine. We reached him and sat down to drink some coffee and water, and then set to work removing stones from the land, and carrying old tires to build a wall around our garden to protect the plants from any animals or settlers that might enter and destroy them.

As we worked, approximately one hundred meters away a Palestinian shepherd grazed his sheep. When I looked up at some point, glancing up at him, I suddenly noticed two settlers coming toward us from Ma'on with sticks in their hands. As they approached, they began throwing stones at the nearby shepherd, frightening him and causing him to run away. Meanwhile, my father, our friend and I stood there watching everything from our garden.

My father's sheep were far away from us, so my father told me to go to bring them back to protect them. As I went, I noticed a car with three settlers inside approaching my father in addition to the two settlers on foot. I could see that at least one of them had a gun.

I felt a pang of fear for my father, worried that the settlers would attack him next. The next time I looked back, the two settlers who had chased the shepherd away had almost reached my father. I immediately turned around and ran to him, beginning to shout as I saw the settlers begin to strike my father with their bats.

As I got closer, now running as fast as I could and shouting, I realized that they were not normal bats, but bats with nails poking out of them.

VIDEO OF THE SETTLER ATTACK ON HAFEZ HURAINI
https://twitter.com/yuval_abraham/status/1570109799014207488?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1570109799014207488%7Ctwgr%5Ecc81026f5e7b2b6114f53bf1e54a13e37f7b6ffb%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fmondoweiss.net%2F2022%2F09%2Fisraeli-settlers-attacked-my-father-on-our-land-the-settlers-are-free-while-my-father-sits-in-prison%2F

When the settler armed with a gun saw me coming to defend my father, he shot into the air to scare me away. I felt my heart stop. Then, he aimed at me with the gun. I felt terrified. We were alone on this hill, the three of us, unarmed, facing five settlers with bats and at least one gun. There was no one else around to help us.

They began swinging their bats at us, striking my father. In an effort to defend us, my father swung his shovel at them, hitting one of the settlers who was attacking him. The settlers began to retreat under the protection of the settlers armed with the gun, and they returned to the Havat Ma'on outpost.

Immediately, we called for the ambulance to take my father to hospital, because his two hands were clearly broken by the settlers during the attack. At the same time, we called Israeli police and military forces to make a report, thinking that the nature of the attack was clear and that the settlers would be arrested.

While we were waiting for the ambulance to come, more settlers arrived in cars, and began to provoke us. Our hearts were still racing from the attack, and I began to feel the weight of the injustice and violence we were facing—not just the immediate threat of deadly violence from the settlers at that moment, but the entire system of military occupation and colonialism that does not allow us to feel safe in our own land and home.

By this time, my father was lying on the ground and the pain I could hear in his voice hurt me too. Despite his pain, thinking of me, my father told me, "Go home now and don't do anything stupid. The occupation will not hear you and believe our side. They don't care about the truth."

Voicing my own feelings, he reminded me that Israeli forces would protect the settlers and allow them to continue to violate our rights and commit violence against us. He was afraid that if I stayed with him, I would be arrested instead of the settlers.

I always listen to my father. Throughout my life, he has shown me how to resist injustice by example. So, feeling my fear and anger burn in my chest, I turned back home and walked to the house. Twenty agonizing minutes later, I began to hear sound bombs and my sisters' voices alongside my mother's, shouting against the voices of soldiers. In that moment, I felt torn, unsure of what to do—if I went back to stand with my family, the army would arrest me; if I stayed home like my father told me, I would be painfully useless. I heard my father's voice in my head, "Go home now and don't do anything stupid," and I decided to stay.

While I waited at home, slowly the news began to pour in. The Israeli police and military forces had arrived and prevented my father from being taken to the hospital immediately by the Palestinian ambulance that arrived. In support of this, the settlers slashed the ambulance's tires, preventing the first responders from leaving with or without my father.

Israeli police then said that my father was under arrest. They brought an Israeli ambulance instead, and took my father, alone and with broken hands, to Soroka hospital in Beer as Seba' on the other side of the wall.

The soldiers and police also arrested two Palestinian people for no reason other than that they came to my father's aid. After this, they kicked all of the Palestinians out of our land on the hill, throwing sound bombs and tear gas directly toward them and announcing that it was a closed military zone. According to this announcement, no one, including Israeli settlers, should remain in the area for 24 hours. Despite this, as they used violence to drive all Palestinians down the hill and into at-Tuwani, the military allowed settlers to stay in the area and destroy the trees in the garden we had been working just a short while before.

Still, the Israeli forces weren't done.

Following the settlers' orders, and claims that a settler had been "lynched" by dozens of Palestinians they entered at-Tuwani in their army tanks and on foot, throwing sound bombs directly at homes and tear gas between the houses. The tear gas traveled into homes through our windows, leaving all of the residents including many, many children shouting for onions to help mask the smell while they coughed, choked, gagged, and felt tears rain down their faces.

With nothing to do but try to protect ourselves, I began frantically looking for my little brother of 4-years-old, but he was nowhere to be found. I panicked, running in the street to look for him, and found the army instead. They tossed another sound bomb at me, and I turned to hide myself in another family's tent and cover my head. Watching me hide, they threw another six sound bombs at me. When I was able to escape, I found my brother crying, terrified by what was going on around him. I made sure he was in a safe place.

After an hour of raiding and attacking my village — literally throwing bombs at people who had already been chased into their houses — the Israeli forces seemed to leave the village, but gathered at the main entrance to stop any movement in or out of the village.

By 2:30 am, the army returned to the village, this time forcing residents back inside by throwing sound bombs onto our front doors. They came to my house and detained around 15 people. The rest of us, exhausted but kept awake by the uncertainty of what might come next, sat together.

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We made it through the night somehow, and as  the sun began to rise we called our lawyer to see what would happen with my father. She told us that he had been moved from the hospital to interrogation and would remain in jail at least until his first court date on Thursday.

When we heard this, a silence fell throughout the house. My mother sat, shocked. Our father would be held in jail and possibly tried in court for being attacked on his own land. Meanwhile, the settlers who attacked us sat free in the outpost next door.

We are living through a catastrophe at this moment, waiting to discover what will happen to my father in a court that does not represent us, does not hold laws created by us, and does not answer to Palestinians.

Meanwhile, we wait for the next attack.

Every day, we face this injustice and apartheid not only from the settlers, soldiers, or police, but from the entire system that uses violence to hurt us, steal our land and imprison us. We cannot stay silent, and we must let the world know what is happening. We need your support now more than ever.

Free Hafez Huraini. Save Masafer Yatta.