Rare charges filed for Jewish terror attack targeting Palestinians in West Bank
Defendant accused of participating in brutal beating of Palestinian poultry farmer, who remains in coma as result of violent ambush south of Nablus
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A 25-year-old man from Jerusalem was indicted Wednesday on terror charges after allegedly taking part in three separate Jewish terrorist attacks on West Bank Palestinians and their property, one of which left a man in a coma.
It marked a rare effort by Israeli authorities to prosecute an attack on Palestinians by Jewish extremists. Settler attacks have taken place on a daily-basis in the West Bank with almost complete impunity, with critics accusing the government of turning a blind eye on such violence.
The defendant, Israel Grossman, was accused in the Jerusalem District Court of participating in the brutal beating of a Palestinian man who worked on a poultry farm between Jalud and Qusra, villages south of Nablus.
The victim, 32-year-old Zahran Shanabla, suffered serious injuries to the head and remains hospitalized and in a coma as a result of the attack in April.
He was one of several workers on site at the time of the attack, found unconscious two hours after the beating, after he was feared missing or abducted.
Police announced the day after the April attack that they had arrested eight suspects aged 13 to 48, but Grossman was not one of them, having been nabbed in early May.
All eight were detained at the scene immediately following the attack on suspicion of assault and arson. One was found in possession of an army-grade M16 assault rifle, police said at the time.
In an earlier attack in February, Grossman allegedly vandalized property, smashed windows and set fire to a car in Jalud. Prosecutors said he and several other accomplices were masked and arrived in the town equipped with clubs and axes.
The gang roved around the village, causing damage to houses in their vicinity, until they centered their focus on one particular home, prosecutors wrote. Using their weapons, Grossman and his accomplices allegedly shattered eight windows and set a car on fire outside the house.
The indictment also implicated Grossman in an attack on security forces that took place in May, in which he tried again to reach the poultry farm in an ATV, while equipped with a weapon resembling a gun, pepper spray and an axe.
When police tried to arrest him, he fled and hit the forces with his vehicle, the indictment read. The government gifted settlers such ATVs last year, and many of them have been seen at the scene of attacks on Palestinians.
Grossman was charged with a litany of offenses including arson, causing aggravated bodily harm with a terror motive, rioting and malicious property damage.
The IDF has faced criticism for often standing by while such settler attacks unfold — with troops sometimes actively participating — or failing to prosecute those responsible. In contrast, the army frequently arrests Palestinians who are involved in violent confrontations with settler attackers.
Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was reportedly told that up to 80 percent of incidents that Israeli troops in the West Bank record are Jewish attacks on Palestinians. The statistic was shared with the premier by an officer in the IDF Central Command during a meeting on Jewish terrorism, the Kan public broadcaster said.
The Times of Israel Community.