RAMALLAH, (PIC)
The head of Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Moayed Shaaban, said Israeli occupation forces (IOF) and Jewish settlers carried out 1,593 violations in the West Bank against the Palestinian people, their land, and their sanctities during the month of January 2024.
Shaaban explained in the Commission’s monthly report on “violations of the occupation and measures of colonial expansion,” that the IOF and settlers carried out 1,407 and 186 attacks respectively.
He pointed out that the violations were concentrated in Al-Khalil Governorate, with 291 attacks, followed by Jerusalem, with 203 attacks, and Nablus, with 200 attacks.
Shaaban stated that settler attacks were intensively carried out in Al-Khalil (63 attacks), Nablus (38 attacks), and Ramallah (23 attacks), the most prominent of which was the shooting of the young man Tawfiq Ajaq in al-Mazra’a al-Sharqiya.
He stressed that Jewish settlers stole 47 heads of livestock, three agricultural tractors, and two tents, while the IOF seized 82 vehicles, seven surveillance camera recordings, 15 bulldozers and trucks, in addition to 19 recorded cases of theft of money and gold jewelry and the theft of 60 heads of livestock.
Uprooting and burning of trees were also reported among settlers’ violations. A total of 836 trees, including 473 olive trees, in the governorates of Bethlehem, Qalqilya, Nablus, and Al-Khalil were affected, in addition to steeling more than 70 heads of cows and carrying out nine thefts of farmers’ equipment, three mobile homes, and an agricultural tractor.
Shaaban added that the IOF carried out 58 demolition operations, affecting 62 facilities, including 22 inhabited and two uninhabited homes, 16 agricultural facilities in the governorates of Al-Khalil, Jerusalem, Qalqilya, and Bethlehem. About 26 demolition notices were issued in the same period against Palestinians’ property in Jerusalem, Nablus, and Al-Khalil.
Shaaban highlighted that the IOF has been increasing the financial fines (hundreds of thousands of shekels), imposed by the so-called “Settlement Council” on Palestinian farmers and shepherds in a new mechanism to push citizens to leave their lands and homes.
Shaaban warned of the new policy recently been pursued by the IOF through the prevention of citizens from accessing their lands using military orders completely inconsistent with the international law, stressing that these measures, which include settlers’ violations and IOF’s systematic closure of Palestinian villages and cities, have prevented citizens from reaching more than half a million dunums of their lands.
