[…] settlers were filmed this week torturing lambs in a Palestinian-owned pen in the southern West Bank.

A video from a security camera filmed on Monday shows nine masked men with clubs entering the yard of the Dramin family, on the outskirts of the village of Samu in the South Hebron Hills.

The video shows the settlers shattering windshields and torching harvests, as three of the men enter the sheep pen and beat lambs in front of the ewes. The security camera filmed one of the settlers throwing lambs onto the floor, throwing concrete blocks at them and beating them, as another settler hit the others. Six lambs were killed, and four others were severely injured.

Human rights activists say that at the start of the war, an illegal outpost was built near Samu and that its settlers assaulted Palestinians living nearby. The activists say that this isn’t the first time that the Dramin family’s house has been attacked, but this is the most serious incident. In addition to injuring the sheep, the attackers broke the house’s windows and pepper-sprayed the inside. They fled when a Palestinian car arrived.

Activists Ben Zion Eshel and Amir Pinsky, who help defend Palestinians in the Jordan Valley from settler attacks on behalf of the human rights group Looking the Occupation in the Eyes, said that they have seen worsening settler violence against animals.

They cited throwing stones at dogs and recently filmed Hilltop Youth activists beating dogs with clubs in the Jordan Valley. They said that there are testimonies of settlers running over sheep and other farm animals and using drones to chase flocks, resulting in cases of ewes miscarrying.

Eshel and Pinsky added that they have noticed over the past two years an increase in cases of settlers placing sheep and donkey carcasses at the entrances to Palestinian communities in Area C to drive the residents away.

They said that a flock of sheep was stolen and slaughtered in Ein al-Hilweh in the Jordan Valley. “Flocks are poisoned. Poisoned chicken heads that kill dogs and wild animals, such as foxes, are scattered around,” Eshel said.

Eshel and Pinsky added that settlers’ use of their flocks to drive Palestinians from the land is animal abuse. “This is abuse in itself, and it is carried out to harass Palestinian communities,” Pinsky said. “They travel great distances with their flocks just to reach Palestinian homes, and their flocks can’t handle it. Lambs die in the pasture.”

The Israel Police issued a statement on the filmed abuse, saying that forces from the IDF, Border Police and Shin Bet security service found one of the cars the suspects used in the act and handed it to the police investigators. “Extensive actions and investigations are underway to locate them, including exhausting all testimonies and evidence collected on the scene,” the police said.