[News] Israeli Forces & Settler Violence Intensifies Across the West Bank
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Tue Apr 16 11:39:03 EDT 2024
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*Action Alert: Al-Haq, Al Mezan and PCHR Urge the International
Community to Intervene as Israeli Forces and Settler Violence
Intensifies Across the West Bank*
In the midst of Israel’s genocidal attacks in Gaza, Al-Haq, Al Mezan
Center for Human Rights and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
(PCHR) urge the international community, private actors and businesses,
to respond to the widespread violent attacks against Palestinians and
their property across the West Bank. Violent Israeli military and
settler attacks have
been<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=1121507bae&e=08c14cf485>escalating
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=de04e48f20&e=08c14cf485>
in intensity and scale ––between 7 October 2023 and 15 April 2024, as of
12:00 pm, 435 Palestinians, including 112 children, have been killed by
Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF), eleven Palestinians, including three
children, have been killed by settlers, five Palestinians have been
killed by settlers or the IOF and one Palestinian has been killed by a
settlement guard in the West Bank, including the eastern part of
Jerusalem, according to Al-Haq’s documentation. The violence escalated
significantly on 12 April 2023 after a 14-year-old Israeli settler went
missing, whereby violent Israeli settler mobs commenced raiding occupied
villages in the West Bank. Al-Haq is currently conducting a field
investigation into the settler attacks, arson and property destruction
in the villages of Al-Mughayir, Abu Falah, and Beitin, northeast of
Ramallah, Duma, southwest of Nablus, Qusra, south of Nablus and Beit
Furik, east of Nablus in which at least two Palestinians were killed;
Jihad Afeef Sudqi Abu-Aliyye, 25 and Omar Ahmad Abdul Ghani Hamed, 17,
and dozens were injured.
According to Al-Haq’s initial documentation, under the watchful eye and
protection of the IOF, a group of around 1500-2000 Israeli settlers,
including armed settlers, raided and attacked Al-Mughayir village for
some eight hours on 12 April 2024, and for around four hours the
following day. During these attacks, Jihad Abu-Aliyye was killed, as he
was shot in his head while protecting one of the homes targeted by
settler attacks. When Jihad was shot, he was among a group of around
25-27 Palestinians on the rooftop of a Palestinian home, which was
surrounded by around 400 Israeli settlers. For around 30 minutes, Jihad
was left to bleed as other young Palestinians were unable to evacuate
him, as attempts had been met with more shots from Israeli settlers.
Despite shootings from Israeli settlers and physical assaults from the
IOF, a group of Palestinians were finally able to carry and transfer
Jihad to a Palestinian ambulance, which transferred him to he
Palestinian Medical Complex in Ramallah city, where his death was announced.
During these two days, the Israeli settlers completely burned 14 homes,
13 livestock pens, a civil defence vehicle and three car garages, as
well as partially burning 15 homes and four livestock pens in
Al-Mughayir village. Furthermore, 60 vehicles were set ablaze. A total
of some 76 Palestinians were injured, primarily by Israeli settlers,
with 18 remaining hospitalised including three women and two children,
at the time of writing. Of those, six Palestinians sustained serious
injuries, with three currently in the intensive care unit. Israeli
settlers further stole 145 sheep, and killed 36 others.
On 13 April 2024, at around 8:30 pm, a group of around 40-50 Israeli
settlers attacked, once again, the village of Beitin. In response,
Palestinian youths rushed to repel the settlers’ attack, especially
since there had been arson and vandalism by settlers earlier in the
morning at the eastern entrance of the village. According to Al-Haq’s
initial documentation, Omar Hamed, a highschool senior and the youngest
of his siblings, seemed to be among the first to respond to Palestinian
distress calls and arrived at the scene of the attack. However, upon his
arrival and exiting the vehicle with the intention of deterring the
attacking settlers, he was shot in the head. Following his injury, he
was transported by a civilian vehicle to the Ein Yabrud centre, from
where he was subsequently transferred to the Palestinian Medical
Complex. Despite attempts to resuscitate him, his death was announced
shortly after his arrival at the hospital.
As part of these rampages, Israeli settlers, along with the IOF, have
closed off main roads and entrances to villages, and imposed movement
restrictions on military checkpoints. Armed and backed by the IOF,
Israeli settlers gathered and organised themselves and threatened to
“set Samaria [northern West Bank] up in flames should the teenage boy
not be found”, as disseminated over their social media.
On 13 April 2024, Israeli settlers have burned and thrown stones at
dozens of vehicles and homes in Duma, Qusra and As-Sawiya villages,
south and southeast Nablus city. During their attacks, Israeli settlers
further burned 300 olive trees and livestock sheds, and killed 40 sheep
and more than 10,000 chickens. Specifically, at around 12:00 pm,
hundreds of Israeli settlers, accompanied by the IOF, attacked Duma
village, firing live ammunition disproportionately as well as directly
at Palestinian residents, stone throwing and burning several vehicles
and houses. As a result, five Palestinians were injured by use of live
ammunition, knives, and beatings, according to the Palestinian Red
Crescent Society (PCRS). The IOF obstructed the passage of PCRS
ambulances into Duma, which continued to be denied access for
approximately three hours. In Duma also, the IOF and settlers broke into
and searched several houses, captured and questioned a number of
residents, and completely burned five homes while partially burning
seven others.
While in Qusra village, at around 4:10 pm of the same day, around 150
Israeli settlers accompanied by the IOF, as reported by Qusra
Municipality, attacked the village, fired live ammunition, burned
vehicles, houses, and commercial stores, injuring four Palestinians with
stones, and a number of suffocation cases as a result. The IOF have also
attacked and beaten a Palestinian woman. According to Qusra
Municipality, these attacks included damage to the electricity network
as a result of fired bullets, and burning of four electricity poles.
Furthermore, according to Al-Haq’s documentation, Israeli settlers
burned five homes and apartments during their attack on Qusra village.
These latest attacks have resulted in the forcible displacement of five
families from Duma and another five families from Qusra, whose homes
have been rendered completely uninhabitable due to these acts of arson.
Additionally, these residents suffer great psychological harm as they
watch their homes and property being burned before their eyes, and
lacking any sense of security.
These events represent a clear spike in the degree and intensity of
violence being experienced by Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian
territory (OPT), and should provide the impetus for the international
community to respond with decisive and meaningful actions geared towards
ending Israel’s colonial settlement enterprise and the impunity enjoyed
by all those responsible for the establishment, maintenance and
expansion of Israeli settlements and for violence perpetrated by
illegally transferred inIsraeli settlers. While the United Kingdom
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=cf3238cca1&e=08c14cf485>,
United States
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=cc96a35a02&e=08c14cf485>,
and several European states
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=b08e73d1b6&e=08c14cf485>
have imposed sanctions against a handful of low-level Israeli settlers
for their violence and attacks against Palestinians, these sanctions
have not targeted in any way the actual policy makers with
responsibility for the illegal acts. Over the decades, Israeli
high-level government and army officials and the Israeli judiciary have
created an environment in which settler violence can grow unabated.
Settler attacks have also been called out by the Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim A. A. Khan KC, who has
expressed
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=a9c0ebc788&e=08c14cf485>
extreme concern “with the spike, the increase, in the number of reported
incidents of attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians
in the West Bank”, and announced
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=d972f5ea2d&e=08c14cf485>t
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=8b896d9410&e=08c14cf485>hat
these attacks will be investigated. With international efforts still
falling short from addressing the root causes of settler violence, our
organisations urge the international community to address settler
violence as a matter of policy and not mere sporadic incidents of
attacks, and pay proper attention to the causal link between the heinous
acts committed against various communities across the West Bank and the
high-level government officials responsible for transferring Israeli
settlers and establishing and maintaining colonial settlements, as well
as creating a culture of impunity that further encourages illegal
incursions on Palestinian land.
Like the ongoing assault on Gaza, the current escalation in the West
Bank does not take place in a vacuum. Between 1 January and 31 October
2023, there were at least 1,038 incidents
of<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=5e09d985a2&e=08c14cf485>settler
violence
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=e3143160a8&e=08c14cf485>.
Since 7 October 2023, settler attacks have more
than<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=64faccd551&e=08c14cf485>doubled
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=11bccedaf6&e=08c14cf485>
from an average of three to eight incidents a day. Similarly, the rate
of Palestinians displaced has more than doubled –– an increase of nearly
119 percent –– as 280 Palestinians are now being displaced on average
every month due
to<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=65f1411575&e=08c14cf485>demolitions.
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=91d8d134c4&e=08c14cf485>
This is a direct result of
Israeli<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=6822e90d65&e=08c14cf485>settlement
expansion
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=473ae4e6eb&e=08c14cf485>,
which is at its highest level since UN monitoring began in 2017, and
Israel’s illegal designation of a record amount of West Bank land
as<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=ef767548c8&e=08c14cf485>state-owned
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=c326711595&e=08c14cf485>.
More
than<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=e184602227&e=08c14cf485>700,000
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=de9438153d&e=08c14cf485>
settlers –– 10 percent of Israel’s nearly 7 million population –– now
live in 150 settlements and 128 outposts dotting the occupied West Bank,
including eastern Jerusalem. While settlements are authorised by the
Israeli government, Israel classifies outposts as illegal –– yet, their
presence and activities are allowed by the IOF and police forces and
their formation are supported by Israel, including through retroactive
regularisation. Both are illegal under international law.[1]
Article 49 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of
Civilian Persons in Time of War of 12 August 1949 (Fourth Geneva
Convention) states that the “[t]he Occupying Power shall not deport or
transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it
occupies”. Furthermore, the UN General Assembly,[2] and UN Security
Council,[3] have expressly recognised and reaffirmed the illegality of
Israeli settlements in the OPT and the applicability of the
aforementioned legal framework due to Israel’s status as an Occupying
Power. Such transfers amount to a war crime under Article 8(2)(b)(viii)
of the Rome Statute of the ICC, to which Palestine is a State Party.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, asserted in a
recent<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=03e3b34025&e=08c14cf485>report
<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=87d2d51c9c&e=08c14cf485>
to the UN Human Rights Council that “the policies of the current Israeli
Government appear aligned, to an unprecedented extent, with the goals of
the Israeli settler movement to expand long-term control over the West
Bank, including East Jerusalem, and to steadily integrate this occupied
territory into the State of Israel.” On the basis of the existence of
this state policy, the ensuing forcible displacement of Palestinians
constitutes the crimes against humanity of forcible transfer,
persecution, and apartheid pursuant to Articles 7(1)(d), (h), and (j) of
the Rome Statute of the ICC.
*Recommendations for immediate action*
Settler violence, including the attacks which took place throughout
Friday and Saturday, are a direct result of Israel’s settler-colonial
apartheid regime which not only allows, but encourages, dispossessing
indigenous Palestinians of their land. The total lack of accountability
and absence of any judicial system capable of providing fair, impartial,
and independent rulings has fortified the resolve of illegal settlers to
continue carrying out violent, destructive attacks which strip
Palestinians of both their life and livelihood.
Accordingly, Al-Haq, Al Mezan and PCHR:
· Urge Third States to impose sanctions (including the freezing of
all assets within the control of the relevant State) against figures
including Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Minister of National
Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, Minister of Defence, Yoav Gallant, and
Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, amongst others, whose policies
and plans provide for the expansion of settlements and appropriation of
Palestinian land;
· Call on Third States to prohibit the import of illegal settlement
goods and services into their territories, and to prohibit the
procurement of goods from and investments in companies listed on the UN
Database;
· Call on corporations and financial institutions, in line with
their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and
Human Rights (UNGPs) to divest and disengage from Israel’s illegal
colonial settlement enterprise;
· Calls on States to suspend military assistance and apply a
two-way arms embargo on Israel, as failure to do so opens up the
possibility of being considered as complicit in war crimes, crimes
against humanity and genocide;
· Urge Third States to recognise that Israel’s judicial system as
part and parcel of Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime and
provide full support to the work of the ICC, and the UN Independent
International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian
Territory, and demand more action on their part in response to the
atrocities being committed on a daily basis in both the West Bank and
Gaza. In particular, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC must be
assisted in its investigative efforts so as to be able to issue arrest
warrants without further delay; and
· Call on the international community –– represented by the United
Nations –– to set aside its geopolitical and economic interests in order
to address the root causes of the Palestinian plight, ending the
occupation and dismantling Israel’s settler-colonial apartheid regime;
and thereby ensuring respect to the collective right of the Palestinian
people to self-determination.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] For some examples of the stance of various States on the matter, see
International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences arising from the
Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
including East Jerusalem, Request for Advisory Opinion (2024), available
at:<https://alhaq.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=10071401ba4201bc1a4992f68&id=354ca24fb1&e=08c14cf485>https://www.icj-cij.org/case/186
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[2] See United Nations General Assembly Resolution 36/226 A (1982), UN
Doc A/RES/36/226 A (17 December 1982); United Nations General Assembly
Resolution 37/123 (1982), UN Doc A/RES/37/123 (16 December 1982); United
Nations General Assembly Resolution 56/83 (2001), UN Doc A/RES/56/83 (12
December 2001); United Nations General Assembly Resolution 58/89 (2003),
UN Doc A/RES/58/89 (9 December 2003); United Nations General Assembly
Resolution 64/19 (2009), UN Doc A/RES/64/19 (2 December 2009).
[3] See United Nations Security Council Resolution 446 (1979), UN Doc
S/RES/446 (22 March 1979); United Nations Security Council Resolution
452 (1979), UN Doc S/RES/452 (20 July 1979); United Nations Security
Council Resolution 465 (1980), UN Doc S/RES/465 (1 March 1980); United
Nations Security Council Resolution 478 (1980), UN Doc S/RES/478 (20
August 1980).
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Palestine
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