Settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank is on the rise
Attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are increasing, with at least 115 dead, more than 2,000 injured and nearly 1,000 others forcibly displaced from their homes due to violence and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7. the United Nations.
Among the dead are 33 children, This is evident from an update on Sunday from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairswho has followed the conflicts.
Confrontations in the West Bank have long been a problem, but violence has intensified in the past three weeks and has more than doubled to an average of seven incidents per day, compared to three incidents per day since early 2023, the UN said.
“We have observed more incidents where armed settlers have threatened Palestinians,” Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office, told The New York Times. “In several areas, Palestinians have been ordered to leave under the threat of firearms.”
An ever-growing number of Israeli communities have taken root in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967. The settlements that cut into areas of land that Palestinians are entitled to also undermine the territory needed for a two-state solution, increasing tensions in the region. . They also attract many West Bank residents who consider them Jewish by birthright.
The clashes since October 7 have involved almost half of “Israeli forces accompanying or actively supporting Israeli settlers as they carried out the attacks,” the UN report said.
The Israeli military declined to comment.
In the days following the October 7 attacks, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir announced that his ministry purchase of 10,000 guns to arm civilians, with intended recipients including those in West Bank settlements.
Much of the violence in the area is against herders and Bedouin communities. The UN said these Palestinians have faced physical violence and intimidation and have also been denied access to their land, a particular hardship given that many are farmers.
The Palestinian hamlet of Khirbet al-Rathheem, in the hills of Hebron, has now been completely cleared of its population of around 50 inhabitants. According to Palestinians living there, Israeli settlers from a nearby outpost began closing the roads into the hamlet on October 14.
On the night of October 14, “they came back to attack us, pointing their guns at us as they forced us all into one room,” said Amir Abdullah Hamdan al-Maharak, a 50-year-old farmer with seven children.
Mr al-Maharak said the settlers dragged and pushed his elderly father around the family home, then used their knives to cut the family’s water barrels and the pipes for their propane bottles.
Fearing for their lives, he and his family decided to take their sheep and flee.