West Bank Settler Assault Ends with Detention of Palestinian Sheikh Saeed al-Amour

Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian landowner Sheikh Saeed al-Amour on 28 Aug in Khirbet al-Rakeez, a hamlet in Masafer Yatta south of Hebron, according to witness accounts circulated by local media. Al-Amour, who has one leg, was beaten while tending his property. Shortly after the attack, Israeli security forces arrived and took Al-Amour into custody. The authorities have not issued a statement explaining the grounds for his detention or his current condition. The incident came a day after a separate settler raid in the South Hebron Hills left seven Palestinians and Israeli activists injured, four of whom required hospital treatment, Haaretz reported. Activists said the assailants used clubs, damaged equipment and smashed windows after police allegedly failed to prevent them from grazing sheep on Palestinian land. The back-to-back episodes add to growing concerns about settler violence and law-enforcement responses in the occupied West Bank, where human-rights groups say tensions have intensified around Palestinian agricultural areas during the summer harvest season.