Settlers attack, break leg of shepherd in northern West Bank, rights group says

A group of 15 Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian shepherd while he was grazing his flock in the northern West Bank, the Yesh Din rights group reports.

The attackers, at least one of whom was armed, hurled rocks at the shepherd, who sustained a leg injury as a result. Neighbors from his village of Burqa arrived at the scene to provide assistance and are waiting for an ambulance to take him to a hospital for further treatment, Yesh Din says.

The right’s group subsequently updates that the shepherd’s leg was broken in the attack.

The incident took place near the area where the Homesh settlement once stood before it was razed in 2005 as part of the Gaza disengagement.

For nearly a decade and a half since then, Palestinians who claim ownership of the land on which the settlement was built have been barred from working those fields, despite them being left largely empty. Instead, a makeshift yeshiva of ultra-nationalist Israelis has operated on a near daily basis with almost no interference from the army.

— Jacob Magid