WEST BANK (ISRAEL) – According to a group of Palestinian cyclists, Israelis in the occupied West Bank attacked them after a popular trail app misled them on a remote path dominated by Jewish settlements.
Supposed to be on an 80-km ride, using the cycling, hiking, and mountain biking app Komoot, cyclist Amer Kurdi set out on Saturday with his brother and three others, trying to set forth on a path north from the Palestinian village of Birzeit.
The West Bank, captured by Israel in a 1967 war, has Israeli settlements and doesn’t give access to its 3 million Palestinians mostly, as well as checkpoints and military bases. Israel says it is necessary for its security.
An hour later, Kurdi said they were taken by Komoot to the east towards a rocky path near the Israeli settlement of Shilo. According to him, a group of Hebrew-speaking men, whom the cyclists later assume to be Israeli settlers, enquired about their whereabouts.
Soon after Kurdi, 30, replied that they were from the Palestinian city of Ramallah, he estimates that there were five or six, who started pelting stones at them, and had used T-shirts to hide their faces, Kurdi and his brother, Samer, said.
“The others managed to run away, but I tripped and fell,” Samer, 28, said. “When I got up, a settler was behind me, and he started beating me with a metal rod.”
The cyclists had taken photos after the incident, which they reported to Israel’s police. It showed Samer’s legs and arms bruised and bloodied.
Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, however, said they are looking into the matter.
Palestinians complain that navigation apps fail to capture or comprehend the complex situation of the West Bank.
Asked for comment, Komoot expressed regret for the incident but clarified that its service is not specifically designated for route planning “through areas of political unrest”.
Amer Kurdi says the incident will not keep him from cycling.
(Photos syndicated via Reuters)
This story has been edited by BH staff and is published from a syndicated field.