Video shows brutal attack on Palestinian woman in West Bank
Video verified by ABC News shows the moment a man clubbed an elderly Palestinian woman in the West Bank on Sunday. Witnesses said the alleged attacker was an Israeli settler.
The incident occurred as a crowd of settlers chased Palestinian farmers in the village of Turmus’ayya, blocking access roads, beating the farmers with sticks and stones, setting cars on fire, and ultimately knocking the woman unconscious, according to eyewitness accounts and videos reviewed by ABC News.
A UN official in the West Bank warned on Tuesday of "skyrocketing" violence by settlers in the territory, which Israel seized from Jordan in the 1967 Six-Day War. In the 1970s, Israel began establishing civilian communities or Jewish settlements on the contested land.
An American journalist who filmed Sunday's incident, Jasper Nathaniel, said that Israel Defense Forces troops stationed in the area abandoned him and the Palestinians to the settlers -- even after he said he warned the IDF troops that the farmers and the Americans with them feared for their safety.
Responding to ABC News' request for comment on incident, the State Department issued a statement.
"The U.S. Department of State has no higher priority than the safety and security of U.S. citizens," a department spokesperson said. "We are not aware of any U.S. citizens wounded in Turmus Ayya on October 19 at this time. We are monitoring the situation."
The IDF didn't respond to ABC News' request for comment on the incident.
In a video shared with ABC News, Nathaniel and a Palestinian-American man he was traveling with, Yaser Alkem, are seen stopping at a checkpoint with what appear to be two Israeli military vehicles.
Two minutes later, the journalist walked up to the soldiers, who questioned him.
"I am an American, I am visiting," Nathaniel can be heard saying in the video. "We just need help getting out because the settlers over there are blocking us. This is the only other way -- just back to Turmus’ayya, back to the village. We just want to go home."
The soldiers then asked him to retrieve his passport from the car, the video shows.
"They told us to park the car and wait with them until the settlers were gone, so they would secure our presence," Alkem told ABC News. "They said they would make sure the settlers were gone before letting us through. We followed their directions."
However, the IDF troops did not protect the farmers, according to Nathaniel and Alkem, who captured the incident on video.
Video shows the group being chased by more than 20 masked men whom witnesses say were Israeli settlers. In the videos, IDF troops were not seen intervening as the attack escalated rapidly.
"Everybody at that point was anxious. I started driving away from the olive groves -- from their olive trees -- but the road was crowded with cars," Alkem said. "The IDF was nowhere to be found, all this time."
A man armed with a stick, with his face covered, then attacked an unarmed Palestinian woman standing by the side of the road, a moment Nathaniel and Alkem witnessed and filmed from their car.
"I later learned that she was waiting for her son to bring the car so she could ride with him," Alkem said. "But the settler got to her before her son did. The moment he reached her, he hit her once on the head with this big pole he had. She fell to the ground, unconscious. Then, while she was on the ground, he hit her twice more."
The mayor of Turmus’ayya, Lafi Shalbi, told ABC News that the woman attacked on Sunday is 55-year-old Afaf Abu Alia, who is still suffering from brain bleeding and remains hospitalized in Ramallah. The mayor added that the attack was "meant to kill her"
According to Alkem, the masked man also severely injured at least one other person -- an international activist whom Alkem and Nathaniel said they drove to a doctor that same day.
Turmus’ayya is home to a large number of Palestinian-American citizens, including Yaser Alkem, who returned to live there full-time after 35 years in California.
"We have no one to turn to other than our home country, which is the United States of America, and it has so far let us down," Alkem told ABC News. "We’ve asked for assistance. We’ve asked for protection. We’ve asked for equal treatment."
Palestinians envision the West Bank, along with Gaza and East Jerusalem, as part of a future state.
Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu said in September that "a Palestinian state will not be established," prior to the announcement by France, the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia of the recognition of Palestinian statehood.
In an interview with TIME on Thursday, President Donald Trump said Israel would lose U.S. support if it annexed the West Bank.
- ABC News' Helena Skinner and Mariam Khan contributed to this report.
