SILAT Al-DHAHR, West Bank (AP) – More than two weeks after the attack, Tareq Zubeidi continues to spend most of his time in bed, too scared to leave the house, even though his foot injuries allowed him to walk normally. .
The 15-year-old is bewitched by the memory of what he describes as a brutal attack by Israeli settlers, who he said beat him with batons, tied him to a tree and burned the soles of his feet.
“When I sit alone, I start thinking about all of them, and then I start sweating and my heart rate starts to increase,” Zubeidi said.
Although there were no witnesses to corroborate Zubeidi’s account, the August 17 incident took place in an area where violence between hardline Jewish settlers and local Palestinians is common.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group that monitors settler violence, said he was unable to verify every detail of Tareq’s account, but that “it is clear that the boy was physically and mentally abused.”
The group documented at least seven settler attacks on Palestinians and their properties in the village area of Zubeidi in the past two years. He says that when the Israeli military intervenes, it often sided with the settlers. The Palestinians claim the West Bank, captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as the main part of a future independent state.
The Israeli army says troops were sent to Homesh, a nearby settlement that was forcibly evacuated in 2005, following reports of Palestinians throwing rocks. When soldiers arrived, they found settlers chasing a Palestinian teenager who was later returned to his family, the military said in a statement.
Groups of settlers with links to Homesh declined to comment or said they were unaware of the incident.
Zubeidi said he and some friends grabbed some snacks up to the top of the hill where the settlement was and found a place to relax. Around 9:30 in the morning they heard people shouting in Hebrew and looked up to see a small group of settlers approaching them.
He denied that he or his friends had thrown stones and said, “I don’t know anything about that.”
Instead, he said, they ran fearfully down the hill to their village of Silat al-Dhahr. Zubeidi said a previous knee injury slowed him down, allowing another group of settlers in a car to grab him and knock him down as he was walking down the street connecting Homesh to the main road.
“Four settlers got out of the car and there were two others traveling on foot,” he said. “One of them had a gun.”
The settlers beat him with wooden clubs before covering his blindfolded eyes and tying him to the hood of the car, he said. They drove for about five minutes, back up the hill, before the car stopped abruptly, causing it to fall to the ground. “Then they started hitting me, spitting on me and swearing at me,” he said.
He said the settlers tied him to a tree and whipped him with a belt. They then knocked him down, cut off his legs with a knife and burned the soles of his feet with a car lighter. In the end, they hit him on the head with a club and knocked him unconscious, he said.
When he reached him, he was in an army jeep with an Israeli soldier who, he said, immediately began threatening him. “He told me that if something happens to the deal, we will arrest you and if there are stone throws, you will take full responsibility,” Zubeidi said.
His father, Abdul Razek Zubeidi, said his son was taken to a hospital that afternoon and spent the night there. A medical report said he had bruises on his shoulder and cuts to his feet. Photos taken shortly after the incident appear to show two dark wounds on the soles of the feet.
Abdul Razek Zubeidi said he immediately reported the incident to Palestinian police, who said they contacted the Israeli army. Abdul Razek said he has not heard anything from the Israeli authorities. The family says it has not filed a complaint with Israeli police, for fear of wasting time.
Palestinians in the West Bank live under Israeli military law, giving them few avenues of legal recourse, while the nearly 500,000 Jewish settlers in the territory have full Israeli citizenship.
Homesh was one of four West Bank settlements that were evacuated as part of Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 2005. But settlers from another nearby settlement are still going to the summit to study and pray, according to the Israeli media.
In addition to the more than 130 Israeli-authorized settlements, there are dozens of unauthorized settlement sites. Israel is reluctant to evacuate them because doing so risks igniting clashes between settlers and soldiers.
The Palestinians and the majority of the international community see all settlements as a violation of international law, as well as an obstacle to peace, because they threaten the territorial contiguity and viability of any future Palestinian state.
The UN envoy to the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, raised the Tareq case at a Security Council meeting last month, which described the incident as a “heinous act” and called on the Israeli authorities holding the perpetrators accountable.
Tareq’s mother, Hanan Zubeidi, fears it could have been much worse.
“Imagine, my son tells me he was beaten by them,” he said. “I didn’t expect to see him alive.”