After two Palestinians were run over today by Israeli settlers on West Bank roads in two separate incidents in which one was killed and the other wounded, the Palestinian Foreign Ministry warned against the rise in incidents involving Israeli settlers running over Palestinians, which it feared were premeditated while condemning Israeli police indifference.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates said in a statement that if the incidents were reversed, that is a Palestinians ran over an Israeli, soldiers or settlers in the area would have assumed that the incident was intentional and would have opened fire at the car involved before even checking the facts with an intention to kill those in it.
“This situation confirms not only the racism of the occupying state in dealing with the Palestinians but also the absolute disregard for their lives as if they have no value,” it said.
“We consider the incidents of running over Palestinians, which have become a phenomenon that is repeated without any attention or follow-up by the occupation police or its various organs, crimes, whether intentional and deliberate or by negligence and indifference shown by the occupying police, even if they are ordinary traffic accidents involving a Palestinian,” the ministry concluded its statement.
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Earlier today, a settler ran over and killed Mustafa Falaneh, 25, from the village of Safa, west of Ramallah, and a father of an 18-month old baby girl, as he was trying to cross a street near his village.
Later, another settler ran over and wounded Shafiqa Bisharat, 48, from a Nablus-area village, who was admitted to hospital for treatment. Witnesses said the settler had attempted to run over sheep in the area and was harassing Palestinians on the road before hitting Bisharat.
No one was arrested in either incident.
