RAMALLAH, Tuesday, April 18, 2024 (WAFA) – The Israeli forces either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent colonist attacks in the West Bank that have forcibly displaced people from 20 communities and have entirely razed at least 7 communities since October 7, Human Rights Watch said today.
Israeli colonists have assaulted, tortured, and committed sexual violence against Palestinians, stolen their belongings and livestock, threatened to kill them if they did not leave permanently, and destroyed their homes and schools.
Many Palestinians, including entire communities, have fled their homes and lands. The military has not assured displaced residents that it will protect their security or allow them to return, forcing them to live in precarious conditions elsewhere.
“Colonists and soldiers have displaced entire Palestinian communities, destroying every home, with the apparent backing of higher Israeli authorities,” said Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “While the attention of the world is focused on Gaza, abuses in the West Bank, fueled by decades of impunity and complacency among Israel’s allies, are soaring.”
Human Rights Watch investigated attacks that forcibly displaced all residents of Khirbet Zanuta and Khirbet al-Ratheem south of Hebron, al-Qanub east of Hebron, and Ein al-Rashash and Wadi al-Seeq, east of Ramallah, in October and November 2023.
The evidence shows that armed colonists, with the full protection of Israeli army, repeatedly cut off road access and raided Palestinian communities, detained, assaulted, and tortured residents, chased them out of their homes and off their lands at gunpoint or coerced them to leave with death threats, and blocked them from taking their belongings.
Human Rights Watch spoke to 27 witnesses of the attacks, and viewed videos that residents filmed, showing harassment by men in Israeli military uniforms carrying M16 assault rifles. As of April 16, the Israel Defense Forces did not reply to questions Human Rights Watch sent by email on April 7.
Colonist attacks on Palestinians surged in 2023 to their highest level since the UN began recording this data in 2006.
Following October 7, the Israeli military called up 5,500 colonists who are Israeli army reservists, including some with criminal records of violence against Palestinians, and assigned them to West Bank “regional defense” battalions. The authorities distributed 7,000 guns to battalion members.
The UN has recorded more than 700 colonist attacks between October 7 and April 3, with soldiers in uniform present in nearly half of the attacks. Attacks since October 7 have displaced over 1,200 people, including 600 children, from rural herding communities. At least 17 Palestinians were killed and 400 wounded, the UN reported.
On April 12, the body of a 14-year-old Israeli boy was found after he had disappeared from the settlement outpost of Malachei Hashalom. Since then, colonists have attacked at least 17 Palestinian villages and communities in the West Bank, according to OCHA.
None of those evicted from the five communities investigated have been able to return, Human Rights Watch found. The Israeli military either rejected or did not answer requests to allow residents to return, leaving Palestinians without protection from the same armed colonists and soldiers who threatened to kill them if they returned.
One family with seven children, forced to flee on foot from al-Qanub, now lives in a small cinderblock storeroom with no money to pay the rent.
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