On Tuesday, Palestinian police arrested someone who was practicing sorcery and witchcraft in Yatta, south of Hebron.
This sort of thing is not unusual. At least twice, supposed sorcerers beat their clients to death while pretending to remove the demons/jinns from their bodies.
A 2012 article gives case after case of people being injured or killed by these supposed "sorcerers" in Gaza. It says that there are over a thousand of these charlatans in Gaza, who charge exorbitant amounts to exorcise jinn or otherwise pretend to cure maladies. Women have been raped by some of these "sorcerers" while the husbands, hearing the screams outside the door, believes that they are being attacked by demons.
The expose noted that these sorcerers can clear over $1500 a day, triple the average monthly wage in Gaza at the time.
It also mentioned cases of multiple young women being poisoned to death after taking some of the herbs prescribed by the charlatan. In another case, a man with foot problems from injuries during Hamas' takeover of Gaza became paralyzed from the "sorcerer" treatment, and instead of going to the police he hired people to break the holy man's legs.
In another case from 2010, 62-year-old “witch” Jabriya Abu Qinas was killed, presumably from someone she ripped off.
Doctors at Gaza hospitals confirm many deaths from this "magic," from beatings and poisonings.
For such a widespread problem, there are vanishingly few articles about it, and close to none at all in English.
A Pew survey in 2012 found that 67% of Palestinians believe in jinn (demons,) 14% in sorcery and 59% in the "evil eye."
