Old Palestinian man in serious condition after being run over by Israeli truck

Occupied Palestine (QNN)- 65-year-old Palestinian Al-Haj Suliman al-Hathalin, from Palestinian community of Umm al-Khair, is in a serious condition, after he was run over and critically injured by an Israeli truck on Wednesday.

According to local sources, Al-Haj Suliman al-Hathalin, from the Palestinian community of Umm al-Khair in the Masafer Yatta, was taken to a hospital in Hebron last night after he was badly injured when he was run over by a truck that was towing a Palestinian-owned vehicle confiscated by the Israeli occupation authorities.

He is in serious condition and is currently in an induced coma, on a ventilator, after having undergone surgery to stop a brain hemorrhage.

He also has fractures in his skull, spine, chest and pelvic area and the doctors are fighting for his life, the sources said.

Al-Haj Suliman has been known as a slender, elderly man who gives every visitor to the community a passionate history lesson, complete with maps and aerial photographs showing the historical presence of Palestinians there and how the illegal settlement of Carmel, established right next to the community, has taken over their land.

Just a stone’s throw away from the village is the Israeli settlement of Carmel, built in the 1980s on land belonging to the al-Hathalins, its lush gardens, electricity and piped water, standing in stark contrast with the barrenness of Umm al-Khair, where the community is forced to live off the grid and buy tanks of water at exorbitant prices.

The community has faced a constant threat of displacement ever since the settlement was built and it continues to expand on to their land.

Masafer Yatta is one of the most remote and sparsely populated areas of the occupied West Bank – completely in Area C, and under full Israeli military and civil control.

Seventeen small Palestinian villages are included in the area with a population of approximately 1,100.

Israeli settlers began constructing settlements in the area in the 1980s and there are now more than a dozen settlements and outposts there, as well as Israeli military installations.

Residents of Umm al-Khair and surrounding villages nonviolently resist Israeli settler violence and military occupation, by continuing to live on and work their land.