A pregnant Palestinian woman has suffered miscarriage after a group of Israeli settlers attacked and beat her up in the center of al-Khalil (Hebron), the southern occupied West Bank.
Palestinian medical sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the 37-year-old woman, identified as Mirvat Sa’ad Abu Romeila, sustained multiple cuts and bruises as Israelis from the Ramat Yishai settlement in al-Khalil, located about 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of al-Quds (Jerusalem), assaulted her. She was transported to the general hospital in the city, where doctors said the assault had resulted in the death of the fetus.
The development came on the same day as Israeli settlers destroyed and uprooted hundreds of olive saplings in the southern West Bank town of al-Shuyoukh.
Local activist Ahmad al-Halayqa said nearly 80 acres of land planted with olive saplings were vandalized by the Israeli residents of nearby settlements.
Israeli forces as well as settlers regularly engage in violence against Palestinians in the occupied territories.
More than half a million Israelis live in over 120 settlements built since Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East al-Quds, in 1967.
Settlers, mostly armed, almost regularly attack Palestinian villages and farms and set fire to their mosques, olive groves and other properties in the West Bank.
The Israeli settlements are considered illegal by much of the international community because the territories were captured by the Israeli regime in a war in 1967 and are hence subject to the Geneva Conventions, which forbid construction on occupied lands.
MP/HSN/HMV