المكتب الوطني للدفاع عن الارض ومقاومة الاستيطان منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية
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By: Madeeha Al-A’raj
The National Bureau for Defending Land and Resisting Settlements stated in its latest weekly report , that few days separate us from the beginning of the Palestinian Olive Season, yet to find ourselves facing escalating violence by Jewish terrorist organizations that are launched from settlements, outposts and so-called pastoral farms. Since the beginning of Oct., the danger threatening our countryside in the West Bank is in increase. The dangers continue in spite of the brutal war waged by the occupying state against the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and Lebanon in the southern suburbs of Beirut, southern Lebanon and the Beka’a area.
Settler terror roams the Palestinian villages and towns in various governorates of the West Bank. Colonel Avishai Moalem, the Public Complaints Officer in the Israeli police claimed that the series of terrorism that has continued and escalated since Oct.. 7 last year, has decreased in wartime conditions, he was speaking at a special session held by a subcommittee of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. He explained that the number of settler attacks in the first five months of the war amounted to 270.
Contrary to that, the number in the same period last year amounted to 537 attacks, meaning that attacks on Palestinians have decreased by half. This decrease was not a coincidence, he claimed, but rather the result of the redoubling of police and intelligence efforts in combating the chaos! carried out by the settlers, as the police issued 67 administrative detention orders, increased investigations, and filed indictments against violent settlers. This is a false claim, the Yedioth Ahronoth Newspaper revealed in a report that, the Israeli police, for example, arrested only one settler out of about 100, who participated in the terrorist attack on the Jeet town last August. He was charged with obstructing police work and then released. One hundred settlers attack the village, set fire to its homes, destroy its citizens’ vehicles, and fire live ammunition at its citizens, causing the martyrdom of citizen, Rashid Abdul Qader al-Sadda, 23. The occupation police sum up the terrorist act by charging one of those terrorists with obstructing police work and then release him.
Many reports issued by neutral international bodies, both civil and official refuted the claims of the aforementioned police officer. A new report issued by the International Crisis Group in early Sept.r states that Israeli settler attacks since Oct. 7, 2023 ‘have escalated to an unprecedented level, resulting in the killing of 21 Palestinians and the injury of 643 others, in addition to the destruction of approximately 23,000 Palestinian-owned trees.’ Merav Zonszein, the group’s senior analyst, confirmed that ‘settler violence has reached an all-time high, with Israeli settlers harassing, terrorizing and killing Palestinians across the West Bank in greater numbers, at greater rates and with greater frequency. They are emboldened by a government committed to deepening control over the West Bank and thwarting the establishment of a Palestinian State.”
At the same time, data provided by OCHA to the International Crisis Group showed that 1,264 incidents of settler violence occurred between October 7 and August 12. These attacks ranged from verbal harassment and intimidation to violent acts, such as, physical assaults, destruction of property, and arson targeting Palestinian homes, fields, and vehicles. During this period, the attacks resulted in the killing of 21 Palestinians, the injury of 643 others, and the destruction of some 23,000 Palestinian-owned trees, according to the same figures. The motives behind settler violence and terrorism, according to the aforementioned report, are the displacement of Palestinians from their lands.
Settler leaders have a different view on this state-sponsored terror. They said, settlers are fighting for the ‘right to live in Judea and Samaria’ i.e. the West Bank. Shlomo Ne’eman, head of the Yesha Council, which the International Crisis Group considers an umbrella group for Israeli settlers living in the West Bank, explained, “The settler actions are not violence but a struggle over territory. There are two sides at war, but ‘some’ call it settler violence.”
The International Crisis Group added, ‘imposing sanctions on violent settlers is a useful start.’ The US, UK, and EU should go a step further, namely by expanding individual sanctions on members of the government who incite such violence, concluded, naming far-right ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, who openly support settler violence.
Noting that the ‘International Crisis Group’ is an international, non-profit, non-governmental organization founded in 1995. Its mission is to prevent and resolve bloody conflicts around the world through providing advices to governments and international organizations, such as, the UN, EU, and the World Bank.
In any case, the fact remains and can’t be hidden. The violence and terrorism of the settlers is an integral part of the violence and terrorism of the occupation state and army. During this war, the occupation army killed more than 700 Palestinians in the West Bank and arrested more than 11,000 during the daily raids. In the last few days, scores of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in a brutal operation that resulted in the martyrdom of 18 citizens and the injury of others in a raid carried out by occupation aircraft on a popular café in the Tulkarm Refugee Camp in the northern West Bank, in an event that the West Bank hadn’t witnessed anything like it, but during the second intifada in 2002.
Settlers’ terrorism comes as an extension of the open war waged by the occupation army against the Palestinian people in the territories occupied in the June 1967 aggression. It is not decreasing as Itamar Ben Gvir’s police claim, but rather increasing and escalating continuously. It is not limited to time, but rather exists throughout the day, week, month and year, but it increases during the olive harvest season and especially in an atmosphere of war.
The sanctions imposed by the US Administration and many European and non-European countries don’t reduce its level, as they are just for show, far from their real source and from the official bodies that feed it in the decision-making circles of the occupation state, starting with Netanyahu, Smotrich and Ben Gvir, through the Settlements Council, headed by the terrorist Shlomo Ne’eman, and ending with members of the Knesset. We search for a single day without terrorism or violence emanating from the settlements and outposts, but in vain.
Evidences on that are many. Since the beginning of this month and over the past week e.g. settler violence and terrorism have swept through many villages and towns in the West Bank at a rate of 2 – 3 times a day, starting with burning olive trees, stealing their crops, and preventing farmers from reaching their fields, as was the case in Hizma and Jaba’ in the Jerusalem Governorate, and Al-Lubban Al-Gharbiya and Burqa in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, and Sebastbeh, Hawara, Burin, Madama, and Deir Sharaf in the Nablus Governorate, and Jama’in and Yasuf in the Salfit Governorate, passing through assaulting citizens and throwing stones at their cars on the streets, as was the case in the village of Khan Al-Ahmar on Highway east of the city of Jerusalem, and near the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim and Kfar Adumim, and the village of Deir Salah east of the city of Bethlehem, and Yitzhar Street and the street that connects the cities of Nablus and Jenin in the Homesh settlement outpost section, and in Sinjil, Turmusaia, Um Safa, and Deir Dibwan in the Ramallah and Al-Bireh Governorate, and Khalayel Al-Loz. And the village of Husan, southeast of Bethlehem, in the lands of Wadi al-Hamra adjacent to the “Beitar Illit” settlement, and ending with raiding urban and Bedouin communities and shepherds and terrorizing their residents, as was the case in Hizma and the Arab al-Malihat community, northwest of the city of Jericho and Khirbet al-Farisiya in the Nab’ Ghazal area in the northern Jordan Valley and Masafer Yatta in the south of the Hebron Governorate.
Last week, the holy places were not immune from the settlers’ terrorism and violence, starting with the writing of racist slogans on the ancient wall of Jerusalem adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque near the Friday Market ‘the eastern wall’), and the storming of the courtyards of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city of Jerusalem in successive groups, carrying out provocative tours and performing Talmudic rituals in its suburbs and blowing the trumpet in it, ending with the continuous provocations in the city of Hebron, specifically on Shuhada Street and in the Ibrahimi Mosque in the center of the city of Hebron, and closing it under pressure from the settlers to prevent Muslims for 4 days from accessing it, ending next Saturday, and opening it to the settlers on the occasion of celebrating two Jewish holidays, the feasts of Tabernacles and Yom Kippur, in addition to the attack on the only mosque in Khirbet Tana, which is affiliated with the lands of the town of Beit Furik, east of Nablus, and destroying the solar energy cells and furniture inside it.
Furthermore, the Israeli occupation army began deploying armored personnel carriers last week near settlements and outposts in the occupied West Bank and the Jordan Valley, the first of its kind since the second Palestinian Intifada two decades ago. This measure comes in the context of the occupation army’s fears of possible attacks on settlements in the West Bank, similar to the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation launched by Hamas on military bases on October 7, 2023, when it attacked 11 military bases and 22 settlements in the Gaza Strip envelope, which many military, security and political officials considered an Israeli failure at the intelligence, military and security levels.
The occupation army had decided earlier this year to form a special military force to protect the settlements for fear of new attacks. The unit consists of reserve soldiers who are graduates of elite units. The occupation army stated at the time that the soldiers would undergo a special training and qualification process, at the end of which they would be qualified to deal with challenges, and that hundreds of soldiers had submitted applications to join the unit, in order to select the individuals who would begin training to form the unit.
Noting that the extremist Minister of National Security in the occupying state, Ben Gvir, had announced last March that his ministry intends to arm 100,000 settlers and that a weapon license was given to the 100,000 Israeli out of about 300,000 applications submitted to the ministry since the war, and that Ben Gvir and officials in his office granted 14,000 weapon licenses without supervision and he personally distributed weapons to settlers, many of whom were seen walking around with weapons in public places.
Hebrew circles estimate that the occupation government has already armed more than 165,000 settlers in the settlements of the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, by the end of 2023, according to Israeli media, scores of settlement associations are also using hundreds of former army officers to train settlers in the West Bank in combat and guerrilla warfare tactics, and that settlers are training men, women, young men and even their children.
In a blatant attack on the UN and its agencies, the Newspaper ‘Israel Hayom’ reported last Thursday that the so-called Israel Lands Authority announced the confiscation of the land on which the UNRWA;s headquarters located in the Sheikh Jarrah Neighborhood of Jerusalem, and the transformation of the site into a settlement project comprising approximately 1,440 housing units. This development comes within the framework of escalating Israeli measures against the agency, including the enactment of laws that strip the agency of its international legitimacy and criminalize its activities. On Oct. 6, 2024, the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Security Committee approved in the first reading a bill aimed at severing relations between Israel and UNRWA. This bill is expected to be put to a final vote in the second and third readings next week, and is part of a series of laws submitted by a number of Knesset members to restrict the agency’s activities in the country.
In recent months, orthodox Israeli from right-wing parties have organized a series of protests in front of the agency’s headquarters to demand its closure. They also recently set fire to land surrounding the headquarters in an ongoing incitement campaign against the agency that provides services to Palestinian refugees in an attempt to end the refugee issue and close the file of their right to return to their homes, from which they were displaced by brutal military force in 1948.
List of Israeli Assaults over the Last Week Documented by the National Bureau:
Jerusalem:
- Assaulting shepherds in the eastern area of Hizma, northeast of Jerusalem, and fired live bullets at them to force them to leave the area.
- Writing racist slogans on the ancient wall of Jerusalem near the Friday Market ‘the eastern wall’ adjacent to the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
- Attacking citizens’ vehicles near the village of Khan al-Ahmar, causing material damage to a number of them.
- Seizing 2 plots of land in the Silwan town, under the pretext of ‘buying them from their owners’ in ‘Al-Farouq and Wadi Hilweh Neighborhoods’, while the occupation municipality forced Jerusalemite Jawad Bashir from the town of Silwan to forcibly demolish part of his house under the pretext of not having a licenset.
Hebron:
- Demolishing a house in the ‘Farsh al-Hawa’ area, west of Hebron, after raiding the area, bulldozing agricultural lands and uprooting trees. The house consists of 2wo floors, a water well and external walls, with an area of 130m2.
- Handing out demolition orders for 4 barracks in the town of Idna, west of Hebron.
- Bulldozing more than 10 dunums of citizens’ lands planted with vegetables and fruit trees in the Beit Umar town, ‘Al-Qarn’ area, belonging to brothers Ghazi, Hatem and Fayez Abu Ayyash, and completely destroyed them, causing heavy losses.
- Demolishing the house of Khaled Khanna, in the ‘Al-Bas’ area near the Shuyukh al-Arroub town, after forcing him to evacuate it.
Ramallah:
- Attacking farmers while they were picking olives in the village of Al-Lubban Al-Gharbi in the Baraish area, and forced them to leave their lands. The Red Crescent Society dealt with two injuries resulting from this attack and transferred them to the hospital.
- Shooting at citizens during the storming of the in the Burqa village, and set fire to an agricultural room in one of the nearby farms.
- Attacking citizen Jamal Ahmed Ayesh from the village of Burqa, and seized his vehicle in the Sheikh Ammar area, near the town of Deir Dibwan, east of Ramallah.
- Throwing stones at citizens’ homes, and set fire to areas near citizens’ homes in the Um Safa village.
Bethlehem:
- Storming the ‘Khalayel Al-Loz’ area, southeast of Bethlehem, and stole olives from lands belonging to citizens in the ‘Jabal Sababa’” area.
- Attacking a citizen’s house and vandalized its contents.
- Chopping scores of olive trees in the lands of the Husan village, where settlers stormed the ‘Wadi Al-Hamra’ lands adjacent to the ‘Beitar Illit’ settlement.
Nablus:
- Forcing farmers and olive pickers to leave their lands in the Sebastia town.
- Expelling farmers from their lands while they were picking olives at gunpoint in the town of Huwara.
- Injuring 8 citizens, including an elderly woman, in an attack by settlers in the town of Jamma’in, south of Nablus.
- Attacking a woman north of Nablus while she was driving on the road between the cities of Jenin and Nablus, she was admitted to a hospital in Nablus.
Salfeet:
- Injuring 2 brothers from the Daoud family by severe beatings while they were picking olives in the Haris village, west of Salfeet.
- Attacking olive pickers in the northern area of the village of Yasuf, the people confronted them and forced them to flee the area.
- Demolishing 2 houses under construction and two tourist facilities in the village of Az-Zawiya.
Jenin:
- Handing out 16 stop-work notices in the village of Jalboun under the pretext of building without a license in Area C, which has been inhabited for years. These notices aim to expand the settlement built on the village’s lands.
- Demolishing 2 water collection ponds in the Jalameh village, north of the city of Jenin.
Jordan Valley:
- Storming the Arab Al-Malihat Community in Al-Ma’rajat, northwest of Jericho, raided homes and residences, conducted searches, took citizens’ ID cards, and conducted a census and electronic recording of all their data.
- Hanging ‘Star of David sign’ at Al-Auja Spring to control it.
- Storming Khirbet Al-Farisiya in the northern Jordan Valley, and threatened citizens in the area of demolishing their facilities, seizing their vehicles and agricultural tractors.
