HEBRON: Jewish occupiers attacked a Palestinian photographer who was taking pictures of Palestinian farmers picking olives in the West Bank yesterday.
The incident, filmed by AP Television News, shows four Jewish thugs passing through an orchard in this West Bank town. They are then seen punching and kicking the photographer, Abed Hashlamoun of the EPA photo agency.
Hashlamoun said he was taking pictures of the men when he was attacked. One of the occupiers snatched his camera but dropped it after a foreign human rights activist tried to retrieve it, he said.
The footage shows a Jewish occupier punching a 53-year-old British woman in the face as she tries to snatch a camera from him. She sustained a scratch on her lip. “When I went to get the camera one of the settlers punched me in the face,” Janet Benvie told Reuters Television.
Benvie was one of dozens of foreign and Israeli activists who came to Hebron to shield local farmers from possible attack by occupiers who frequently assault Palestinians during the fall olive harvest.
Reuters Television footage also showed the occupiers punching and kicking Hashlamoun, leaving a bloody scratch beneath one eye. They similarly assaulted his brother, Reuters photographer Naif Hashlamoun, who suffered no injuries.
Israeli soldiers arrived at the scene to break up the scuffle, television footage showed. They also permitted the settlers to leave the scene, Benvie said.
Israeli security declared the area a closed military zone, Danny Poleg, a spokesman for Israeli police in the West Bank said, effectively stopping the harvest.
Poleg said settlers and Palestinians had thrown stones at each other at the site.
Issa Amro, a Palestinian who works for the Israeli human rights group B’tselem, denied any stones were thrown and said police arrived at the scene after the scuffle had ended.
Poleg said no settlers had been arrested because no formal complaint had been lodged.
Three Israelis at the olive grove to help Palestinians with the harvest were later held for questioning after they refused police orders to leave the area, Poleg said.
The harvest is crucial to the local economy, and a long-held tradition emphasizing the Palestinians’ attachment to their land. Left-wing Israelis and pro-Palestinian foreigners often accompany the olive pickers to protect them.
— With input from agencies
