Israeli settlers in Hebron attack ambulance rescuing Palestinian civilian

Israeli settlers pelted an ambulance with stones in the occupied city of Hebron, southern West Bank, of the weekend, according to local sources.

Eid Abu Menshar said his ambulance was attacked on Saturday evening on his way to rescue a patient in Shuhadaa Street area of the occupied city.

Other witnesses also told Palestinian Authority news agency WAFA that around 15 settlers threw stones at the ambulance with occupying Israeli soldiers standing by and doing nothing to prevent the attack.

Around 800 notoriously hard-line Israeli settlers live in Hebron's Old City, under the protection of the Israeli military, surrounded by more than 30,000 Palestinians.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967. More than 600,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in a bid to illegally annex the Palestinian territory.

All Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank are classed as illegal under international law, particularly article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which asserts that "the occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies".

Israeli forces and settlers routinely harass Palestinians in the occupied territories through harming and killing civilians, demolishing homes, poisoning livestock, vandalising property and other forms of violence.