Two weeks after settlers rampaged through Palestinian villages and towns, killing one man and torching homes, residents wonder when justice will come.
ZATARA, West Bank — More than two weeks after Israeli settlers rampaged through Palestinian villages and towns, killing one man and torching dozens of homes and businesses, residents are wondering when justice will come, and who will deliver it.They point to delays in the Israeli police investigation into the killing of 37-year-old Sameh Aqtash, who was shot dead as he and his relatives tried to protect their village of Zatara.
Ayman had expected Israeli police to arrive the next morning to take the security camera footage from his village. No one came. Israeli soldiers are seen among groups of settlers as they walk up and down the main street in Huwara on Feb. 26, pelting storefronts with stones. The shooter would remain at large until March 7, when Israeli forces swept into the West Bank city of Jenin and killed Abd al-Fattah Hussein Ibrahim Gharusha. Local Telegram groups were quick to identify Gharusha as the Huwara attacker, sharing pictures of him wearing a headband with the insignia of the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.On the night of Feb. 26, though, it was the people of Huwara and the surrounding villages who were made to pay for his crime.
But Ayman has few illusions about who the army was there to protect, or about his family’s chances of justice. “Only God protects us,” he said. Ayman says he does not know if it was a settler or a soldier who fired the deadly shot, but he believes the military could have cleared the attacking crowd. The Israeli military did not directly answer a question from The Post about whether its forces used live ammunition in the area, saying only that “the circumstances of death of the deceased are being examined.”
The extended family of 12 hasn’t left the house empty for 20 years, fearing it will be overrun by settlers. Since 2005, only 3 percent of investigations into “ideological” crimes committed by Israelis against Palestinians have resulted in convictions, according to data released late last year by Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group that tracks settler violence.The violence has only intensified in recent months, according to Yesh Din’s director Ziv Stahl, coinciding with the swearing in of the most right-wing government in Israel’s history in December.
“It’s a show for the press and the international community,” Demaidi said of the investigation. “Israel knows these settlers.”
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