On May 31st, 52-year-old Palestinian Fatima Hamdan Khalil and her 57-year-old husband Abdel-Fattah Shihda Sabarneh were run over by Israeli settlers on road 60 next to a cemetery at the entrance of their village.
Fatima, mother of nine children, three sons and six daughters, described this event before she passed away in Ahli Hospital in Hebron due to the serious injuries sustained during the impact with the settlersâ vehicle.
Witnesses confirmed Fatimaâs account and insisted that the event was an intentional crime. They described how Fatima and her husband were run over as they were walking on the sidewalk and how the settler vehicle made a harsh turn to hit the couple.
Incidents like this are dramatically increasing as the number of Israeli settlers rises. Settlers running over Palestinians, such as in another recent incident wherein a Palestinian mother and her two children were run over in the south of Bethlehem, reflects a systematic policy which intends to use targeted violence against Palestinians and the fear it invokes to heed the settler enterprise.