Palestinian children stuck waiting for help amid West Bank settler rampage

A settler rampage in the occupied West Bank village of Deir Sharaf is leaving wounded Palestinians without help and residents in a state of fear.

Shadi Abu Halawa, the head of the village council, told Middle East Eye the attack began in the afternoon when settlers entered Deir Sharaf from the western side, where Israeli soldiers are permanently present.

According to Abu Halawa, dozens of settlers joined the rampage under the watch of Israeli troops. He said they attacked 20 homes, threw stones at them, and set fire to more than four vehicles. 

"We could not reach the area because it was surrounded by soldiers and settlers," Abu Halawa told Middle East Eye's Ramallah-based contributor, Fayha Shalash. 

"But we see columns of smoke rising after the burning of vehicles and we hear the screams of the people, especially the children," he added, 

Deir Sharaf, located northwest of Nablus, is regularly exposed to settler attacks, which vary from cutting trees, burning agricultural crops, throwing stones, and beating residents. 

The Israeli army has placed an iron gate at the western entrance of the village, restricting the movement of Palestinians, as has been the case in many other villages in the West Bank.

Ahmed Jibril, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) in Nablus, told MEE that ambulance crews tried to reach Deir Sharaf to treat a number of wounded people in the settler rampage, but the Israeli army attacked them.

He said their staff received a report that a group of children were trapped inside a warehouse belonging to a bakery and suffered from suffocation as a result of the soldiers firing gas bombs and teargas.

"There are 20 cases of suffocation that we were able to deal with, but there are other cases we were unable to reach," Jibril told MEE. "Until this moment, there are children still stuck there,” he added.