Jewish settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank sprayed children with tear gas and beat several sheep to death as part of an overnight attack on a Palestinian home near the village of Samu in the Hebron Hills of the southern part of the territory.
According to The Associated Press, a Palestinian official said the settlers smashed a window and door of the home and sprayed gas inside, sending three children under the age of four to the hospital. The settlers also entered a building housing sheep, and footage shows them beating the animals. The attack killed three sheep and wounded four others.
Haaretz reported that Israeli police arrested five settlers and that they had ample evidence they were responsible for the attack, though settlers are rarely held for long or prosecuted for their attacks on Palestinians in the occupied territory. The same home was targeted last month when settlers brutally killed six lambs.
The area has seen an uptick in settler attacks since an illegal outpost was established around the time of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel and the start of Israel’s genocidal campaign in Gaza. The violence around Samu is part of an overall trend in the West Bank of increasing settler attacks as Jewish extremists are emboldened by the Israeli government, which continues to authorize the expansion of settlements.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Tuesday that more sheep belonging to a Palestinian resident were killed in an area to the east of Bethlehem as a result of settlers spraying toxic pesticides on the Palestinian’s land. A total of five sheep were killed as a result.
Settlers frequently target livestock and work to destroy olive groves in the West Bank as they seek to destroy the livelihood of local Palestinians, whose land they want. There was a record number of settler attacks against Palestinians in October, when the olive harvesting season started.
