The investigation into a brutal and frenzied attack by illegal Jewish settlers on Palestinian shepherds has been closed by the Israeli police because it was "not possible to identify the attackers" due to their masked identities. The attack was caught on camera last year and shows four men coming from an illegal Jewish settlement to attack three local Palestinian shepherds with baseball bats. The attack was filmed by a relative, who had been given a camera by the Israeli human rights group B�Tselem as part of its Shooting Back project. B�Tselem had handed video cameras to Palestinians in troubled areas so that they could document abuses against them. Four men were arrested but the Israeli police could "not find evidence that they were responsible for the crime", and so the case was closed. Thaman al-Nawaja, a 58 year old Palestinian woman, along with her 70 year old husband, and one of her nephews were herding their flocks on their land when the four intruders entered and started to beat them with baseball bats. The incident took place in the south of the West Bank close to the illegal Jewish settlement of Susia. Tamam a-Nawaj�ah, from Susiya, who was assaulted by settlers on 8 June 2008. Mrs Nawaja told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that she couldn�t understand how the police did not catch the men who beat her. However, according to the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, over 90% of investigations into settler violence are closed without an indictment being filed. A special focus report by United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) observed that "By contrast, when Israeli civilians are the target of Palestinian violence, the IDF actively pursues Palestinian suspects; thousands of Palestinians are arrested and prosecuted through Israel�s military court system each year." In the same report, an Israeli settler described the "exact a price" strategy which has seen an increase in settler violence and attacks against Palestinians and their land: "For every act of destruction in the southern Hebron hills we will set fire to Samaria, and for a container destroyed near Har Bracha we will exact a price in the southern Hebron hills." According to UNOCHA this �price tag� strategy "indicates that Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians are not isolated incidents, but are in fact highly organized and tactically used to achieve political ends." Palestinians are particularly vulnerable to this organized violence as Israeli settlers in the West Bank are routinely armed with M16 rifles. In contrast Palestinians living in the H2 area of Hebron - a site of frequent violent settler attacks - are forbidden even from keeping kitchen knives in their houses. See the full UNOCHA report on Settler Violence here Photo Credit: B�Tselem

