Dozens of Palestinians Sustain Injuries During Israeli Settlers' Attack on their Bus

[ 29/12/2009 - 12:00 PM ]

NABLUS, (PIC)--

Dozens of Palestinians were injured Monday after a brutal attack on a bus they were traveling in near Nablus, north of the West Bank.

The reporter of the Palestinian information center (PIC) said that dozens of Israeli settlers hurled stones at the Palestinian bus traveling on a main road near the settlement of Yitzhar in Nablus which led the bus to overturn.

He added that many ambulances rushed to the scene and transferred dozens of wounded Palestinians to hospital.

In separate incidents, the Israeli occupation forces (IOF) kidnapped Sunday evening a Palestinian citizen called Mahmoud Al-Kelani and took him to an unknown destination after a number of Israeli settlers physically assaulted and opened fire at him near the village of Burin in Nablus.

Palestinian local sources in the village of Beit Awa, southwest of Al-Khalil, also reported that the IOF troops kidnapped at dawn Monday four boys under age 15 from the village, while a bunch of Israeli settlers tried to storm the same village, but they were prevented by the villagers.

In another context, the Palestinian prisoner society reported Monday that Israel kidnapped during the current year at least 900 Palestinians including seven women and 111 children from Al-Khalil district, south of the West Bank.

In a report, the society said that 85 of these Palestinians were administratively detained while the others were imprisoned in different Israeli jails.

The report pointed out that the Israeli military checkpoints deployed throughout the Palestinian cities and villages in the West Bank played a major role in the kidnapping of Palestinians and putting them at the mercy of Israeli soldiers who deliberately humiliate them.

It also touched on the torture methods used by Israeli troops against Palestinians during the arrest and inside prisons such as beating them with fists, feet and rifle butts, and forcing them to strip naked and imitate sounds and movement of animals.

The report said that the Palestinian patients in Israeli jails increased and the medical treatment provided to them are basic or absent, noting that the medical treatment is used by Israeli prison administrations to blackmail and pressure prisoners.

It underlined that Israel is the only state in the world that pursues the policy of administrative detention in violation of articles 43, 73 and 72 of the fourth Geneva convention.