Israeli settlers kidnap, abuse two Palestinian boys near Bethlehem

Israeli settlers kidnapped and abused two Palestinian teenage boys near Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank on Monday, a new report by the UN agency OCHA has revealed.

On Monday, Israeli settlers from a new illegal settlement outpost in the area assaulted two 15-year-old Palestinian boys who were herding sheep around the suburb of Irtas south of Bethlehem.

The settlers put knives on the boys’ necks and took them to their settlement outpost, where they beat them, broke their legs, and urinated on them.

They then put the boys in a vehicle and threw them in open land near Irtas. Other Palestinians found them there and called an ambulance, which took them to a hospital for treatment.

This horrific incident is one of many detailed in OCHA’s “Humanitarian Situation Update” which deals with Israeli violations in the West Bank every week and in Gaza twice a week.

Israeli settlers injured at least four other Palestinians in attacks on 6, 7 and 9 August according to the report. In one incident, they tried to steal a herd of 400 sheep from Palestinian shepherds near Hebron.

The report added that Israeli soldiers killed five Palestinians and wounded another 54 in the West Bank in the same period.

It said there had been 1,250 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank since the Gaza war began on October 7. These attacks resulted in the deaths of at least ten Palestinians and the injury of 110 others.

Israeli forces have killed at least 577 Palestinians in the same period while detaining thousands of others.

Over 40,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have been killed since Israel’s indiscriminate war on the territory began following a surprise attack by Hamas on October 7.