Mamoun Nassar, 44, Madama (video testimony of his mother, Hudda Nassar) I am a resident of Madama. My house is on the main road between Madama and ‘Asirah al-Qibliyah. I live with my wife, two sons and two daughters, my eldest daughter is 13 years old and my youngest son is a week old.
I’m a farmer, a shepherd, I have about 50 goats and sheep. I take my flock to pastures on the southern side of Madama and on the north-western side of the village. When I go up to the pasture with the flock, the settlers of Yizhar are violent towards me. Sometimes they attack me, and my family suffers a lot from settler and soldier violence.
During the summer I take my flock out in the morning at about 7 am. I go back home to water the flock at 11 am and at 3:00 pm I go out again with the flock and get back home at 6:30-7 pm. We have a plot of land that is seven dunams where the pasture is. There’s also a well on this plot. I planted almond trees on this plot several years ago. The settlers uprooted these trees about four years ago, and since then nothing grows on it.
On Saturday morning, May 27 it was the first day of Ramadan, and I didn’t take the flock in the morning to graze because it was hot, and I was tired. I only went out in the afternoon at 3 pm. I went to the pasture on the southern side of Madama’s land, about 700-800 meters from the village. This pasture is two km from the northern side of Yizhar.
At about four pm, I saw a group of settlers coming my way. There were 20-30 settlers in the group. They were a large group of masked men, and I was stunned and afraid. They started throwing stones at me.
There were also five or six soldiers with the group of settlers, and I saw them picking up stones from the ground and handing them to the settlers to throw at me. Among the soldiers was the settlement civilian security coordinator (CSC) of Yizhar, he was in army uniform, I know him personally because we have proceedings in court. I saw that the CSC was helping the rest of the settlers and calling them by their names. I don’t remember their names because I was very scared.
The stones that were thrown at me wounded the left side of my head above my ear and the top of my head, and I bled a lot. I was also severely wounded in the left hand from a rock or bullet, I don’t know which, but there was a lot of blood. Even though I was injured, I didn’t run away, and I walked towards the settlers to make them leave. When the soldiers saw my situation, they moved the settlers back and they all walked towards the settlement.
While the settlers walked back to the settlement, a soldier came down from Yizhar and bandaged my head. After the soldier bandaged my head in the field, people from my village came and took me by car to Rafidya hospital in Nablus, where I got two stitches in my left hand and one stitch in my head.