Settlers 'attempted to kill' Israeli soldiers

[Scurrilous]

Donald Macintyre meets the reservist whose blog exposing the violence in the West Bank has shocked his country

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"Though fairly hair-raising, the blog Haim Har-Zahav wrote about how his Israel Defence Forces unit was attacked several times in the West Bank back in September would have gone almost unnoticed – except for one thing.

The attacks were not by Palestinians, they were by Israeli settlers. Mr Bar-Zahav, 33, who has two young girls and loyally does annual reserve duty, is not easy to surprise. A veteran of combat in Lebanon and in the West Bank at the peak of the intifada, he calls himself a "mainstream Israeli". But today, over a cup of coffee round the corner from the TV station where he works as a successful editor and producer, he says: "All of a sudden you find yourself being attacked literally by the people you left your home to defend... that's what shocked me. I wasn't even slightly aware that there was such violence towards soldiers in the West Bank."

He was on duty when the Israeli military demolished three buildings in the outpost of Migron, a Jewish settlement that is illegal under Israeli and international law. The demolitions sparked a series of "price-tag" (a euphemism for revenge) attacks by extremist settlers on Palestinians and their property. Mr Har-Zahav described in his blog how settlers erected a barricade of burning tyres to block a West Bank road, apparently in a "price-tag" operation.

The military always rushes to dismantle such barriers, used in the past by Palestinian militants, because if a settler's car is stuck, "he becomes an easy target for terrorists", Mr Har-Zahav said.

But this time, as soon as the military patrol arrived young teenage settlers in ski masks began pelting it with large stones – Mr Har-Zahav indicates a diameter of about 8in – from the terraces 10 metres above the road. "It's physics," he says. "If someone gets banged with one from that height, that person is either dead or seriously injured."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/settlers-attempted-to-kill-israeli-soldiers-6263994.html