On 12 March 2020, at around 1:00 A.M., villagers from ‘Einabus woke up to a terrifying sound: stones flying everywhere. Some shattered windows in the homes of the Hamad and Rashdan families. A parked car was also pelted with stones.
The homes that were attacked lie in al-Biada, in the western part of ‘Einabus. The settlement of Yitzhar was built two kilometers away from the neighborhood. The victims manage to catch a glimpse of their attackers – about twenty settlers who fled in the direction of the settlement.
Jinan Hamad, 48, spoke about the attack in a testimony she gave B’Tselem field researcher Salma a-Deb’i:
‘I got up at night to get a drink of water. As I was going back to my room, I heard glass shatter in the kitchen. A stone hit the kitchen wall, another landed in the sink, and a third hit the refrigerator. My whole body was shaking with fear because if a stone had hit me, I might not have survived. I got even more stressed when my husband and sons went outside to run after the settlers who attacked us. I was afraid they’d shoot them”.
In ‘Einabus, whose residents are forced to live under the threatening shadow of Yitzhar, B’Tselem has documented 14 incidents of settler violence since 2009. Locals can list off the most traumatic of them, some of which took place under the protection of the military and with soldiers present: residents and homes attacked; classrooms in the village elementary school torched, tractors and vehicles torched and vandalized, nearly 300 olive trees burnt, livestock slaughtered, tires punctured and hate graffiti sprayed on homes and on the mosque. We have reported on some of these incidents over the years.
‘Einabus, 12 March 2020 – settlers from Yitzhar throw stones, shattering windows of two homes and a car.