As the UK, US and France impose sanctions on ‘extremist Israeli settlers’, Palestinians face assault by gun, bulldozer and attack dog
Salah Abu Awad says he is haunted by memories of the night he was woken up by Israeli settlers who burst into his home and threatened him at gunpoint.
It was one of the many attacks that forced the 28-year-old shepherd and his family to dismantle their homes and abandon their land in the village of Widada in the occupied West Bank’s south Hebron hills.
Abu Awad said he identified the intruders in a police complaint as Ely Federman and Yinon Levy, from the nearby unauthorised outpost of Meitarim Farm.
This month, the UK imposed sanctions on Levy and Federman and two other “extremist Israeli settlers” accused of “egregious abuses of human rights” against Palestinians.
“I hope the sanctions mean something,” said Abu Awad as he grazed his animals on a rocky, windswept hill. “We have suffered a lot from Yinon and Ely. They have confronted me many times, tried to steal my sheep, and ransacked my home.”
…