Taken from Algeria Watch.
Another figure reveals the extent of the repression in this part of the occupied territories: it is the number of arrests which were made there. 8,455 Palestinians have been arrested by the Zionist army in the West Bank since October 7, reveal the Commission for Palestinian Detainees Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners Club in a joint statement released Thursday.
According to Al Jazeera, the West Bank also saw a fairly high number of displaced people with 3,985 residents forcibly evicted. 648 acts of destruction targeting homes and other buildings were also recorded in these territories.
From the start of the war against Gaza, the Palestinian population in the West Bank was in turmoil. And this excitement resulted in almost daily clashes between Palestinian insurgents and the Zionist occupying forces, especially as the occupier continued to increase brutal incursions into Palestinian localities in the West Bank after October 7. . We do not, in fact, count the repeated sieges, assaults and sackings in Jenin, Nablus, Beit Lahm, Tulkarem or even Nour Shams. A week ago, real carnage was committed in the Nour Shams camp. “Thursday April 18, the Israeli army cut off the water and electricity and invaded, at the end of the day, the narrow alleys of Nour Shams, on the edge of the town of Tulkarem. The raid lasted more than 50 hours,” reports Le Monde. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, no less than 14 people were killed during this operation in this refugee camp where some 7,000 people live according to AFP.
The daily hell of the Palestinians of “Al Dhifa”
And even when the Israeli army does not commit such spectacular butcheries, it puts the Palestinians in the West Bank through hell, between arrests, searches, expropriations, repression, indiscriminate shooting on defenseless civilians, assaults on hospitals… Daily, violence is reported in its daily reports by the Wafa agency, in virtually all towns, villages, refugee camps and small towns in the occupied West Bank.
This Friday, in Nablus, “more than 40 Israeli military vehicles came from the Awarta checkpoint and stormed the eastern area of the city”, reports the Palestinian information agency which adds: “The forces occupation forces deployed infantry troops in several areas of the city, particularly in the suburbs and near Al Quds Street, and also stormed the Amman Street area.
Israeli military forces were “accompanied by bands of settlers and stormed Youssef’s Tomb and attacked several buildings.” In addition, “snipers took up positions on the roofs of buildings in the east of the city”. In the Galilee, the Israeli army made incursions into several localities where it carried out searches and arrests.
In Jenin, in the village of Djalboun, Israeli troops invaded the village, which led to clashes with the population. Zionist soldiers opened fire on residents. The village of Djalboun has been the subject of repeated attacks for six days, informs Wafa, specifying that the Zionist army has seized a number of homes there to transform them into military cantonments.
That same Friday, still in the West Bank, the occupying army also carried out operations in the localities of Qobatiya, near Jenin, in Djalzoun, near Ramallah, and in Azoune and Jayouss, near Qalqilya. In Qobatiya, the occupier arrested young Palestinians.
A special unit invested the locality followed by military vehicles. Snipers deployed on the roofs of buildings amid heavy fire. At the Djalzoun camp (Ramallah), three people, including a 33-year-old teacher, were arrested at dawn. In Beit Lahm, violent clashes broke out on Thursday. This happened exactly in the village of Houssan, east of Beit Lahm. According to Wafa, the clashes broke out in the areas of Al Muteena and Chorfa. “The occupying forces stormed Al Muteena and completely closed it. They forced merchants to lower their curtains and prevented citizens from moving around.”
The Netzah Yehuda battalion in the sights of the Americans
Added to this military violence is that of the settlers who are increasing the abuses in all the cities of the West Bank as well as the colonial expansionism of the Hebrew State at the expense of the territories protected by the Oslo Accords. Thursday, Emmanuel Macron spoke by telephone with King Abdullah II of Jordan and the two leaders “strongly condemned recent Israeli announcements regarding colonization, which were contrary to international law,” the French presidency said in a statement. .
According to AFP, 1,100 hectares have been declared “state land” by Israel, “twice more than in the whole of 1999, until then a record year”. “This status gives the government control over their use, inevitably resulting in depriving Palestinians in the West Bank of access,” underlines the French agency.
Regarding the abuses committed by Israeli settlers, the French president “recalled that initial measures had been taken against settlers guilty of violence against Palestinian civilians, and that France was considering other measures, in consultation with its partners », Assures the press release from the Elysée. However, “settler attacks against Palestinians began before October 7 and increased after October 7,” insists Palestinian intellectual and politician Moustafa Barghouti in a statement to France Info.
And to point out: “486 Palestinians have been killed since October 7 in the West Bank, including more than 22 by Israeli settlers. The others were killed by the Israeli army which protects and supports the settlers in its attacks against the Palestinians.”
The United States has considered imposing sanctions on an extremist unit of the Israeli army, the ultra-Orthodox Netzah Yehuda battalion, which is increasing human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said recently that he would reveal the US decision “in the coming days”. Yesterday, the verdict was in: the American administration revised its position after consulting the Israeli authorities. Netzah Yehuda will therefore not be sanctioned for the moment but he remains in the sights of the international community.
A damning investigation by Human Rights Watch
A recent Human Rights Watch report openly accuses the Israeli military of protecting and encouraging settler attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank. “The Israeli army participated in or failed to protect Palestinians from violent attacks by settlers in the West Bank,” the NGO said in a statement released on April 17. “These attacks,” Human Rights Watch continues, “displaced residents of 20 communities and completely uprooted at least seven communities since October 7, 2023.”
The human rights NGO draws up a damning inventory of crimes committed by Israeli settlers: “Under cover of ongoing hostilities in Gaza, Israeli settlers have attacked and tortured Palestinians, committed sexual violence, stolen their property and their livestock, threatened to kill them if they did not leave permanently and destroyed homes and schools.
Many Palestinians – in some cases entire communities – have fled their homes and lands.” These violations were committed “with the apparent support of the highest Israeli authorities,” deplores Bill Van Esveld, deputy director of the children’s rights division at Human Rights Watch. “While the world’s attention is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank are increasing, fueled by decades of impunity and the indulgence of Israel’s allies,” he denounced.
More than 700 attacks carried out by Israeli settlers
Human Rights Watch says it “investigated attacks that forced the displacement of all residents of five Palestinian communities in the West Bank in October and November 2023: Khirbet Zanuta and Khirbet al-Ratheem south of Hebron, Al-Qanub in east of Hebron, as well as Ein al-Rashash and Wadi al-Seeq, east of Ramallah.
“Evidence,” specifies the international organization, “indicates that armed settlers, with the active participation of army units, have repeatedly blocked road access and attacked Palestinian communities; settlers detained, assaulted and tortured residents, chased them from their homes and land at gunpoint, or forced them to flee with death threats, sometimes preventing them from taking their belongings.” .
Human Rights Watch also says it “conducted interviews with 27 witnesses to the attacks and viewed videos filmed by residents, showing harassment committed by men in Israeli military uniforms who held M16 assault rifles.” “The number of settler attacks against Palestinians increased in 2023, reaching its highest level since the UN began recording such data in 2006. This was the case even before the attacks carried out by Hamas on October 7, which killed around 1,100 people in Israel.
And the NGO specifies: “The UN recorded more than 700 attacks carried out by settlers in the West Bank between October 7, 2023 and April 3, 2024, almost half of which were in the presence of soldiers in uniform. Since October 7, attacks have resulted in the displacement of more than 1,200 people, including 600 children, who lived in rural herder communities.”
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