Testimony: Israelis beat, pour boiling water on worker

Ma'an
Residents of Israel's Kiyrat Shimona reportedly beat, and poured boiling water on a 26-year-old Palestinian worker on Friday night, who returned to Nablus for treatment in hospital.

Munjid Besharat, from Tamun village, said he had worked for 14 months in an industrial-area factory of the northern Israel border community, and was surprised last week when three Israeli residents of the community surrounded and began beating him with sticks.

"Three people wearing hats stepped out of a white car and approached me as I walked down the main street of Kiryat Shmona," Besharat said from the Rafidiya Hospital in Nablus.

"I fainted and gained consciousness somewhere unfamiliar, but they were still there," he said. "The same three then took steaming water from barrels and poured it on my face and my body, it was scalding hot.

"The next time I woke up I was in a health center in Tamra," Besharat said. From there, he said he was transferred to the Ramban hospital in Haifa, then taken by police to the Al-Jalama military checkpoint near Qalqiliya.

Doctors at Rafidiya said Besharat suffered "second degree burns in the neck, chest, face, shoulders and back in addition to bruises all over his body." His doctor said Besharat was in "bad psychological condition," and estimated that he would need two weeks in hospital and could finish his recovery at home."

Besharat said he could not describe his attackers, but said he could tell by their voices that they were not fellow Palestinian workers like himself. "I am totally sure that they were Jewish," he said.

Shaher Sa’ed, general secretary of the union of the Palestinian workers' union demanded international human rights organizations form an investigation committee and investigate the incident.

"The union will form a committee as well so we can uncover the details of the incident," he said.

Israeli police could not be reached for comment by phone, while Civil Administration officials said they were unaware of any coordination efforts to return Besharat to the West Bank. "You don't need coordination to get in," an official said.