Retaliatory rampage in Palestinian village likened to ‘Kristallnacht in Huwara’ with one dead and 350 injured
There is a large rolling gate at the entrance to the small Palestinian village of Za’atara, in the north of the occupied West Bank, but it is rarely closed. On Sunday afternoon, however, wary that Israeli settlers living in the area were seeking revenge for the murder of two brothers shot dead by a Palestinian gunman in nearby Huwara, Za’atara’s residents braced for retaliatory violence.
It didn’t take long for the settlers to arrive. Villagers said that by dusk, about 100 armed Israelis, accompanied by a dozen Israel Defence Forces (IDF) soldiers, had massed on the road outside the village entrance, and some began shooting. Sameh Aqtash, a 37-year-old blacksmith who had just returned from volunteering after the earthquake in Turkey, was shot in the stomach. Because the army would not clear the road for an ambulance to reach him, he bled to death, Aqtash’s nephew Fadi said.
