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On Monday, Sept. 12, Hafez Huraini, a 52-year-old Palestinian man, was watering with his 18-year-old son on the land surrounding their home, doing the daily work of cultivating the land in at-Tuwani, the village where they live. At one point five Israeli settlers, some holding metal pipes and others armed with pistols and an M16 rifle, attacked the man and his son, going so far as to break both of Hafez's arms. Meanwhile, other villagers called for help and police. As Israeli soldiers arrested Hafez, who had tried to defend himself from the attack with the shovel he was working the ground with, settlers punctured the wheels of the ambulance so the man would not be rescued and uprooted olive trees on private Palestinian property.

This latter reconstruction is not simply a biased narrative but is what can be seen in 23 minutes of video footage in which the whole affair was captured. The recording was brought to court as evidence in favor of the two Palestinian men by lawyer Riham Nassra but was not deemed sufficient to convict the Israeli settlers; rather, it led the judge to start a trial against Hafez Huraini for attempted murder.

The case is just one of many occurring daily in the Masafer Yatta area in the southern West Bank not far from the city of Hebron. The area, in fact, has been chosen as territory for new Israeli settlements; recently the Israeli Supreme Court declared that the area should be expropriated to become a military training area. The fact that 13 Palestinian villages reside in the Masafer Yatta area has not stopped the initial demolitions; on the contrary, it has fueled indiscriminate arrests and settler aggression. 

Hafez Huraini: the court case exposing Israeli apartheid