Escalation of Occupiers’ Movements in the West Bank Sparks Hamas Response
According to the English section of webangah News Agency, citing Mehr News Agency and Al Jazeera, Hamas issued a statement responding to the increasing violent actions by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The Hamas statement reported that over 260 attacks by Israeli settlers targeting Palestinian civilians and their property were recorded in the occupied West Bank during October alone, with nearly 1,500 such assaults documented since the beginning of this year.This clearly reflects a deliberate terrorist policy pursued by the occupying government against our people.
Hamas added that these assaults aim to forcibly displace the Palestinian population and implement an apartheid settlement strategy based on domination and intimidation.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian red Crescent reported that 14 people were injured during settler attacks on farmers and journalists south of Nablus city.
The United Nations has stated that settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank has reached its highest level since 2006. On Friday, UN officials announced that Israeli settlers carried out at least 264 attacks against Palestinians in October alone, marking a monthly record since monitoring began almost two decades ago.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned about a sharp surge in violence. These attacks have resulted in casualties and significant material damage, averaging eight incidents daily.
OCHA further noted: ”as 2006, we have documented over 9,600 such attacks. Nearly 1,500 occurred this year alone-about 15 percent of all recorded incidents.”
The West Bank is home to approximately 2.7 million Palestinians and remains central to efforts aimed at establishing an self-reliant Palestinian state. Though, successive Israeli governments have rapidly expanded settlements there, fragmenting territorial contiguity.
The United Nations along with Palestinians and most countries consider these settlements illegal under international law.
more than half a million Israeli settlers currently live across various west Bank locations.
OCHA’s data also reveals that from January through early November this year (2024), Israeli forces fatally shot 42 Palestinian children across the West Bank. This means one out of every five Palestinians killed by Israeli forces there this year was a child.
The Israeli mission to the United Nations has yet to respond to Reuters’ request for comment on these reports.
In another development, the UN Office of The High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) called on Israel to immediately halt plans for widespread demolitions targeting eleven homes and critical infrastructure within Umm al-Khair bedouin community situated on hills south of Hebron (Al-Khalil).
A statement released Friday emphasized that Umm al-khair exemplifies a growing wave of Israel’s policies aimed at cementing annexation across parts of the West Bank. Time is running out; international actors must exert pressure to protect residents from imminent forced displacement threats.
This demolition order threatens renewed forced eviction affecting approximately thirty-five extended families who have lived there ever as being expelled from their lands in al-Naqab during massive displacement events known as “Nakba” between 1948-49.
.
