Israeli settlers were filmed on Tuesday attacking a group of left-wing activists and journalists in front of IDF soldiers in the southern West Bank before being allowed to flee the area without a single arrest being made.
The activists from several Israeli rights groups were in the Bethlehem-area Palestinian village of Jannatah to help residents put up a fence around several homes on the outskirts of the town that has come under repeated attack by settlers.
Also on site were a group of journalists from the French AFP news agency who were working on a story about Israeli activists conducting such solidarity visits to Palestinian villages facing settler violence.
But shortly after their arrival, the activists and journalists were surrounded by masked settlers, who struck them with clubs, hurled stones at them and pepper-sprayed them.
The settlers, many of them children, threw stones toward the journalists and activists. One AFP journalist ducked a stone, but then a child settler struck him in the chin with a stick, causing minor bleeding, he said.
