Incidents caught on tape of settlers and soldiers working in synchronization have been stacking up. This incident occurred last Saturday near the illegal expanding outpost ‘Avigail’ in the South Hebron Hills near the Palestinian village of Susya.

Ynet picked it up, On tape: Settler attacks Palestinian shepherd:

A Palestinian who was tending to his herd a few hundred meters from the Avigail outpost in the south Mount Hebron area was attacked for no apparent reason by the outpost’s security officer on Saturday……the security officer grabbing the shepherd, Na’al Abu Aram, and punching him as an IDF soldier looks on. The security officer is later seen shoving the Palestinian and running toward the herd to scare the sheep away. Following the incident, another Palestinian turned to the officer and said: “You’re hitting him; he’s not hitting you. There are cameras, everything, there’s even a soldier here.” At this point, the Palestinians asked that the officer be removed from the scene, as he said to the Palestinian man who was attacked: “You hit me now? You’re going to pay.” After the incident, the security officer told Ynet: “The shepherd arrived at the area accompanied by anarchist activists who are known to incite provocations on a regular basis. As you can see in the video, the shepherd grabbed me and threatened me with a stick. In an attempt to break loose from his hold I pushed him away from me. The video was taped and edited in a manipulative manner aimed at slandering me.

Illegal Avigail outpost settlers and soldiers have a history of expelling Palestinian herders from privately owned Palestinian land near the outpost. International Middle East Media Center (IMEMC) reports Avigail was established by former Israeli soldiers in 2001:

The soldiers entered the land, which belongs to local Palestinians, and installed trailers. They moved in, heavily armed, and began to harass the local villagers and shepherds. No attempt has been made by the Israeli government to remove the trespassing Israelis from the land that they illegally seized by force.

This was published Dec 15, 2012: