On Monday, 14 November 2022, at around 9:30 P.M., Burhan Jarab (72) was driving his truck along Route 60, from his home village of ‘Attil to the market in Nablus, with a cargo of fresh produce. As he passed by the entrance to the settlement of Shavei Shomron, he came across a military jeep that was blocking traffic. Three soldiers standing next to it gestured to him to turn around. Jarab turned the truck around and parked about 40 meters away from the soldiers. Roughly 30 minutes later, while he was waiting by the truck, about 20 settlers attacked him with stones. Jarab was injured in the shoulders and knees and fled towards another military jeep parked by the roadside. The settlers destroyed produce in his truck and then set fire to the driver’s cabin. The soldiers took Jarab into their jeep but did nothing to stop the settlers from vandalizing the truck and the cargo.
Right to left: The produce the settlers threw out of the truck, the driver’s cabin after the fire. Photos: Abdulkarim Sadi, B'Tselem, 15 Nov. 2022
In a testimony he gave B’Tselem field researcher Abdulkarim Sadi on 17 November 2022, Jarab said:
I’ve been transporting produce since 1985 and I have been taking that road for 37 years, mostly at night.
On 14 November 2022, at around 9:30 P.M., I was transporting goods from ‘Attil to Nablus. I was driving on Route 60, and when I got to the Shavei Shomron settlement intersection, I saw a military jeep blocking the road. Three soldiers who were standing there signaled me to stop and turn around. I turned around, drove back about 40 meters, and pulled over by the side of the road near the al-Juneidi plant nurseries. While I was waiting for the soldiers to reopen the road, I got out of the truck to smoke a cigarette. There were several other military jeeps across the road, facing the Jit junction.
At around 10:00 P.M., about 20 settlers came towards me and started throwing stones at me. It was terrifying, because they were only about 25 meters away. Stones hit me in the face, ears, shoulders and knees. My ear, left cheek and left knee started bleeding. I ran over to one of the military jeeps that were parked across the road, to ask for the soldiers’ protection. They put me in the jeep, but when I asked them to stop the settlers from destroying my truck, they just shouted at them but didn’t do anything.
I saw the settlers go into the truck’s cargo box and throw all my goods on the ground. There were 60 crates of lemons, tangerines and tomatoes in there. They threw it all out. Everything was ruined. The soldiers watched but didn’t step in. Suddenly, the settlers set fire to the driver’s cabin. When the flames spread to the back part of the truck, which is made of wood, I begged the soldiers to make the settlers back off and to help me put out the fire, but they did nothing. One soldier took a video of me and asked for my name, where I was from and where I was going. The soldiers didn’t care that I was injured or that the settlers were burning down my truck.
After about 15 minutes, a Palestinian ambulance that was taking a patient from Nablus to Tulkarm passed by. The soldiers flagged it down and asked the paramedics to take me to hospital. My truck was still on fire, and I had to leave it there. The ambulance took me to a hospital in Nablus, where they treated my wounds and discharged me that night.
The next morning, my son Mu’az drove with a tow truck to pick up the truck and found it completely destroyed. The Israeli police called him and asked him to bring me to the police station near Khan al-Ahmar [the Judea and Samaria District Police Headquarters]. The next day, we went there together, and I filed a complaint.
That truck has been my family’s source of income since I got married. I kept it in shape for so many years, and now, unfortunately, it’s no longer possible to get the same model.