| By Tim Franks BBC News, Jerusalem |
Thursday, 12 June 2008 19:35 UK
Video, and news story, on BBC at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7451691.stm
Footage from a video camera handed out by an Israeli human rights group appears to show Jewish settlers beating up Palestinians in the West Bank.
An elderly shepherd, his wife and a nephew said they were attacked by four masked men for allowing their animals to graze near the settlement of Susia.
The rights group, B'Tselem, said the cameras were provided to enable Palestinians to get proof of attacks.
A spokesman for the Israeli police said that an investigation was under way.
So far, no-one has been arrested.
Baseball bats
For the past year, B'Tselem has handed out video cameras to Palestinians as part of its "Shooting Back" project.
 The Palestinians said they were attacked after refusing to move |
The BBC has been given exclusive access to the footage of this particular attack, which happened earlier this week. The date and time on the camera footage shows that it is Sunday afternoon.
Over the brow of the hill walk four masked men holding baseball bats. To the right of the screen, in the foreground, stands a 58-year-old Palestinian woman.
Thamam al-Nawaja has been herding her goats close to the Jewish settlement of Susia, near Hebron in the southern West Bank.
Within a few seconds, she, along with her 70-year-old husband and one of her nephews, will be beaten up.
As the first blows land, the woman filming - the daughter-in-law of the elderly couple - drops the camera and runs for help.
'Ten-minute warning'
Mrs Nawaja spent three days in hospital after the attack.
Returning to the small Palestinian encampment close to the red-roofed houses of Susia, she stepped slowly and unsteadily out of the minibus.
 |   They don't want us to stay on our land, but we won't leave - we'll die here  --Thamam al-Nawaja |
A dark stain showed through the white gauze covering her broken right arm. Her veil was lifted gingerly away from her lined face. A bloodshot eye and intersection of scars revealed a fractured left cheek.
"The settlers gave us a 10-minute warning to clear off from the land," she told me, her voice a tired, cracked whisper.
She and her husband had stood their ground. It is at this point that her voice grows louder.
"They don't want us to stay on our land. But we won't leave. We'll die here. It's ours," she added.
Indeed, the rest of the world regards Jewish settlements in the West Bank such as Susia, as illegal, built on occupied territory...
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