AL-KHALIL, (Palestine Foundation Information Center), The southern al-Khalil area witnessed a new assault carried out by armed settlers targeting citizens’ homes and property at dawn Friday. The attack resulted in heavy material losses affecting private belongings amid escalating field tensions in the region and surrounding areas near the town of Yatta.
Activist Osama Makhmara reported that a group of armed settlers left the Otniel settlement, built on citizens’ land, and infiltrated under the cover of darkness into the Majd al-Baa area, west of Yatta.
According to Makhmara, the attackers targeted residents’ homes and deliberately set fire to two vehicles owned by brothers Khaled and Yasser Abu Ali, burning them completely to wreckage before the homeowners managed to repel the assault.
The violations did not stop there, as they coincided with intensive military activity by Israeli occupation forces inside Yatta. Soldiers blew up the doors of several shops and forcibly stormed them.
Troops then conducted thorough searches, ransacking the contents and damaging goods, which spread fear among residents and directly harmed local businesses.
These twin assaults, settler violence and army raids, underscore the systematic policy of pressure imposed on citizens in al-Khalil Governorate, aimed at undermining their resilience on lands targeted for settlement expansion. Local activists are calling for urgent international protection for residents and their property against these repeated attacks.
