Colonist ‘ran over a Palestinian boy on purpose’

Ramallah: Fourteen-year-old Marwan Zakariyah Asous, from the village of Borine, south of Nablus, was on his way on Thursday to shop for his sister’s wedding party later in the day when an Israeli colonist ran over the boy, turning the village wedding into a nightmare.

Palestinian officials believe the boy was run over intentionally.

“The Israeli colonists know all about the social events in the nearby villages of Nablus and often act to turn the happy moments of the villagers into sadness,” said Ghassan Doghlous, the Palestinian official of the Palestinian National Authority in charge of overseeing Israeli colonial activities in northern areas of the West Bank.

Israeli colonists in the occupied West Bank carry out regular attacks on Palestinians in the area as a pressure tactic to push them off the land that they see as being granted exclusively to Jews by God. Such attacks include uprooting of trees in farms as well as violent assaults.

“They intentionally hit the victim and ran over him - several eye witnesses to the case have provided this testimony,” he told Gulf News.

Palestinians from the village of Borine and the other neighbouring areas chased the Israeli colonist and caught him. “It was only few seconds before a huge Israeli military force arrived at the scene and freed the colonist from the hands of the villagers,” he said.

“As a result, the situation in the entire area of Nablus is tense,” he said, adding that the way the Israelis handle the incident will influence what will happen next. “The victim’s family and villagers are busy with the boy whose medical condition is extremely difficult. He has been admitted to the ICU.”

Marwan sustained serious injuries and fractures in different parts of his body and was rushed in a Red Crescent ambulance to Rafidyah Hospital in Nablus.

Doghlous said that the boy has been on life-saving machines and that there has been no improvement reported in his case since his admission.

“The Israelis have not even offered to transfer the victim to an Israeli hospital for treatment,” he said, adding that the Israeli occupation forces freed the colonist and disappeared from the scene. The Palestinian Security Liaison Office submitted a complaint to the Israeli side complaining that the victim had been run over on purpose.

“There cannot and will not be coexistence in the area of Nablus where tens of Israeli colonies spread between tens of Palestinian villages,” he said.

“With the existence of the aggressive Israeli colonists there will be no chance for calm and stability in the area. This is a fact that is proven daily with the brutal behaviour of the Israeli colonists,” he said.