Qarawat Bani Hassan, Salfit District: Settlers threaten man with gun and pepper-spray him in the face in front of his children

On Tuesday, 12 July 2022, Saed Abu ‘Alia (49) and his two children, Sadeq (13) and ‘Abd a-Rahman (11), were on their way home north of Qarawat Bani Hassan when four settlers arrived with a dog. One of the settlers pointed a gun at the three, and then another sprayed the father’s face with pepper spray and warned him not to return to the area.

In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi, Abu ‘Alia said:

What the settlers did to me really scared my children. They saw my eyes were stinging and that I was having trouble breathing. Some relatives of ours heard what happened and came to help us, but the settlers had run away by then.

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Israel’s regime of apartheid and occupation is inextricably bound up in human rights violations. B’Tselem strives to end this regime, as that is the only way forward to a future in which human rights, democracy, liberty and equality are ensured to all people, both Palestinian and Israeli, living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

Since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023, Israel has acted in a coordinated and deliberate manner to destroy Palestinian society in the Gaza Strip, committing genocide against its residents. In light of Israel’s actions in Gaza, the public statements made by Israeli decision-makers, and the international community’s failure to take effective action, there is a serious risk that the Israeli regime will expand the genocide to other areas under its control—first and foremost, the West Bank.
B’Tselem calls on the Israeli public and the international community to use every tool available under international law to bring an immediate end to Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.