Settlers attack undercover Israeli police officers disguised as Palestinians

Two Israeli settlers beat up police officers disguised as Palestinian labourers in an illegal West Bank settlement.

2 min read

02 January, 2020

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 [Getty]

Two Israeli settlers attacked undercover police officers disguised as Palestinian labourers in an illegal West Bank settlement this week.

Believing the police to be Palestinian workers, the teenage settlers approached them in the Bat Ayin settlement and started to interrogate them. The police refused to answer properly, prompting an attack, Haaretz reported.

One teenager used pepper spray on the undercover cop, and the other started beating them.

They were subsequently arrested and taken in for questioning. According to their lawyer, Moshe Polsky, the two teenage boys were held overnight. Their names were not released because they are minors.

Polsky, who is defending the teenagers on behalf of far-right pro-settlement legal aid group Honeinu, said the boys were under full conviction that the officers were Palestinian, thus attacking them is justified during a "stressful security period".

He also deplored the police officers for "provoking" the settlers by dressing as undercover Palestinians.

Settlers in Bat Ayin are notoriously anti-Palestinian. Unlike other illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians are not even allowed to enter.

Israel has occupied the West Bank illegally since 1967, and commits various abuses against Palestinian civilians, human rights groups say.

More than 600,000 Israeli Jews live in settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, in constructions considered illegal under international law.

Along with stealing land, Israeli soldiers and settlers routinely harass Palestinians in the occupied territories in various ways.

Israeli military 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.

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