Settlers assault Palestinian detainee at Hebron checkpoint

West Bank violence over the weekend was marked by two separate incidents Saturday in Hebron and in a Palestinian refugee camp near Jerusalem.

A Palestinian man detained by a soldier was attacked by settlers near the Beit Hadassah checkpoint in the West Bank city of Hebron, while three firefighting teams called to fight a blaze in the Shuafat refugee camp in east Jerusalem were attacked by residents of the camp.

Two Palestinians were detained for questioning by a soldier who was manning the checkpoint. After questioning the first person, the soldier let him go and began interrogating the second man. At this point, according to Hebrew media reports, a group of settlers who were standing nearby attacked the detainee.

According to Ynet, the victim was identified as Ayman Fahouri, a 25-year-old tour guide.

The soldier tried to repel the Jewish attackers but they then attacked him as well. When Fahouri managed to escape, he ran to the middle of the road, where one of the assailants let out a burst of pepper spray. The soldier was also attacked with pepper spray.

Fahouri then collapsed, and was evacuated later by the Red Crescent to a Palestinian hospital. The soldier chased the attackers, who fled toward Beit Hadassah, a Jewish-owned building situated in the middle of the mostly Palestinian city.

According to Palestinian sources, police and military forces that arrived on the scene said they would not enter Beit Hadassah before the end of Shabbat, the Jewish holy day.

An initial investigation by the IDF revealed a different series of events from those reported in the press. The IDF said that the soldier at the checkpoint wanted to question the Palestinians, and after finding that one of them was wanted by the police he held him at the checkpoint and called police officers to arrest him. The Palestinian man then reportedly started to behave violently and at this point, the settlers, some of whom were wearing ski masks, arrived and began their physical assault. When the suspect managed to escape one of the attackers caught him just a few steps outside the checkpoint and sprayed him at close range with the pepper spray.

The perpetrators were not caught and police were searching for them.

In a separate incident in Shuafat, fire and rescue services were called by the local residents to put out a fire. When they arrived, they realized the fire was small and that the residents managed to mostly put it out. As firefighters made sure the blaze was extinguished, they were surrounded by dozens of residents from the camp, who began swearing at them and threatening them. Some spat at the fire fighters and shoved them.

Police officers soon arrived and tried to repel the attackers, but because the police officers and fire fighting team were vastly outnumbered, they retreated from the scene.

A firefighter who was at the scene told the Hebrew website NRG that the incident is a recurring scenario in east Jerusalem.

“When we arrived on the scene, there were about 50 people there, and they yelled at us, ‘Why did you come now, you’re not needed. If it was a fire in a Jewish house you would come quickly, now go away.’ They started yelling at me, pushing me and spitting at me. I started walking to the fire truck. There were police officers there and they tried to repel them, but [the police contingent] was not large enough to contain them. So I got on the truck and escaped,” he said.

The officer added that firefighters were attacked three times in the past two weeks in Shuafat as well as Isawiyah and Ras el Amud, also in east Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Fire and Rescue Service said that it views the incident as grave and will take the necessary measures to prevent similar incidents from occurring.