West Bank Palestinians facing deadly ‘war-like tactics’: OCHA

Families are being displaced from their homes in Jenin in the northern West Bank due to an escalation of violence. © UNICEF-Alaa Badarneh

Palestinians continue to face “war-like tactics” used against them by Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said on Friday.

According to OCHA, from 8 to 14 of October, Israeli forces in the West Bank killed nine Palestinians, including a child. Another 104 were injured, including nine youngsters. 

“Israeli forces accused most of those fatalities of being involved in attacking Israelis,” said OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke.

The olive harvest which takes place during October and November and is “an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank” has also been targeted, Mr. Laerke warned, with hundreds of olive trees and saplings “vandalized, sawed off, or stolen”. 

Killed picking olives

“Yesterday, a Palestinian woman was reportedly killed while she was harvesting olives in Jenin. This follows 32 attacks by Israeli settlers this month on Palestinians engaged in the ongoing olive harvest happening right now.”

The woman was with her family and other community members on land near the Wall separating Israel and the West Bank. 

According to information gathered by the UN rights office, OHCHR, the harvesters were not posing any threat whatsoever when Israeli security forces fired multiple shots at them without prior warning.

The arbitrary killing comes in the context of intensified, organized attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinian harvesting teams to sabotage the olive harvest, along with use of force by Israeli security forces to block Palestiniansˈ access to their lands in an apparently arbitrary manner. 

During the first week of the official Palestinian olive harvest season OHCHR recorded dozens of incidents of violence against Palestinian harvesters and disruption of access to olive groves.

Among other alarming incidents, on 13 October, Palestinian landowners from Qusra, Nablus, found 115 of their trees cut down with a chainsaw after resisting harassment and threats by settlers and security forces to vacate their groves.

Mr. Laerke said that although there has been settler violence for “a very long time, this year is extraordinary”.

He noted that about 160,000 people have had their work permits for Israel cancelled, depriving families of livelihoods and income. – UN News