WEST BANK, (PIC)
The Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission recorded 443 attacks carried out by Israeli settlers during one month since the outbreak of the Zio-American aggression on Iran and the accompanying regional tension, indicating an organized escalation that exploited the state of international distraction to intensify attacks and impose new facts on the ground in the West Bank.
Human losses and bloody attacks
The head of the Commission, Minister Muayyad Shaaban, said in a press statement on Saturday that the past four weeks witnessed “terrorist” attacks, which led to the martyrdom of nine Palestinians by settler gunfire and assaults, including the two brothers Mohammad and Faheem Muammar in Qaryut, Amir Shnaran in Masafer Yatta, and three martyrs in Khirbet Abu Falah in Ramallah and al-Bireh governorate, in addition to Aed Arar in Qarawat Bani Zeid, and Mohammad al-Malhi in Bethlehem, along with deaths linked to suffocation and pressure resulting from the attacks.
Wide geographic distribution of attacks
The attacks were concentrated in Nablus with 108 attacks, followed by al-Khalil with 99, then Ramallah with 76, Bethlehem with 32, Jerusalem with 24, and Salfit with 23, in addition to Jericho and Qalqilya, and included direct gunfire, burning of homes and property, and widespread destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Forced displacement affecting Bedouin communities
The attacks led to the displacement of six Bedouin communities, affecting 58 families comprising 256 individuals, including 79 women and 166 children, as families were forced to leave their areas in the northern Jordan Valley and Nablus due to direct threats and repeated attacks, within a context that falls under a systematic policy of restricting Palestinian presence.
Widespread destruction and attempts at settlement expansion
The Commission documented 123 acts of destruction, and 18 attacks that caused fires in citizens’ property, in addition to 3 attacks on religious places, including attempts to burn mosques and repeated incursions into Al-Aqsa Mosque, and preventing Palestinians from accessing it.
It also monitored attempts to establish 14 new settlement outposts, while the Israeli occupation authorities approved the implementation of infrastructure projects on lands of Beit Ummar north of al-Khalil, in preparation for establishing a new settlement outpost named “Ir HaKeren”, which enhances geographic contiguity between existing settlements at the expense of Palestinian land.
Land seizure and military orders
The occupation authorities issued 12 seizure orders for military and security purposes, through which they seized 225 dunums of citizens’ land in several governorates, aiming to open roads and establish buffer zones and military sites, in addition to 27 orders under the name “security procedures” to remove trees from an area of 1,391 dunums, mainly concentrated in Ramallah governorate.
Warning of a systematic policy
Shaaban stressed that this escalation reflects an organized policy that benefits from international distraction with the war, aiming to accelerate settlement expansion and reshape the geographic and demographic reality in the West Bank, warning that the continuation of these measures undermines chances of stability.
He called on the international community and human rights institutions to assume their legal responsibilities, and to take effective steps to stop the violations and provide protection for Palestinians, amid an unprecedented escalation combining settler violence and official decisions that reinforce control over Palestinian land.