Palestinians Wounded by Israeli Soldiers' Rubber-coated Bullets After Reporting Settler Attack

Three Palestinians from the same family have been hospitalized since Saturday, after Israeli soldiers fired rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades at them.

The incident occurred when soldiers arrived to break up fighting between settlers and Palestinians in the Palestinian village of Haris, west of the settlement of Ariel.

One of the Palestinians being cared for at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva is in moderate condition. The other two, lightly wounded, are in West Bank hospitals.

Family members said that at the end of a demonstration staged by settlers from the area, several of them approached the family home, threw rocks and physically assaulted them. Israeli soldiers who arrived at the scene fired rubber-coated bullets, stun grenades and teargas.

A military spokesperson told Haaretz on Sunday that the soldiers fired the rubber-coated bullets in order to break up the fighting between the settlers and Palestinians and that one of the Palestinians had been hurt and hospitalized.

Sarit Daoud, an Israeli woman married to one of the family members, said that when the settlers began throwing stones at the house, her husband called the police. She said that when she and her husband exited the house, one of the settlers attacked her husband and forced him into the ground. Then, she said, a soldier shot a rubber-coated bullet that hit her husband in the head, before a man in a medic’s uniform kicked her husband in the head and then her when she tried to protect him.

Two other family members said they were injured by rubber-coated bullets and stun grenades, one in the neck and the other in the head. Daoud recalled the soldier who shot at her husband telling her, “that’s what happens to those who hit Jews.”

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The Israeli military said it was investigating the incidents.