UN issues warning as Israeli military violence escalates across the occupied West Bank
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has recorded a significant uptick in Israeli military violence across the occupied West Bank amid a large-scale operation in the Tulkarem and Nur Shams refugee camps.
Eight people were killed earlier this week during a 40-hour military raid into the refugee camps that involved drone strikes and armoured bulldozers causing widespread damage to infrastructure such as roads, water networks, sewage systems and electricity networks.
Ten Palestinians have now been killed and 36 others injured by the Israeli military over the last two weeks, according to the UN OCHA’s latest situation update.
Israeli settler attacks on Palestinian communities have also increased, with a mosque in Marda village set ablaze and racist graffiti scrawled on its walls, marking the third mosque to be attacked by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank this year.
Settlers also vandalised a building constructed by an NGO that was nearing the final stages of completion, and there was an attack on a Palestinian livestock tent that settler groups attempted to take over.
Upon being challenged, the settler group vandalised a Palestinian home near a new settler “outpost” in the area that had only been established on December 16, the UN reports.
Israeli settlers descend on archaeological site in occupied West Bank: Report
Israeli settlers have descended on an archaeological site in the Palestinian town of Halhul, north of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank where they chanted slogans against Arab and Palestinian people while holding prayer ceremonies.
Eight buses carrying the settlers arrived at the site, protected by the Israeli military, the Wafa news agency reports. Clashes with local Palestinian youths resisting the incursion broke out but there were no reports of casualties.
The town of Halhul is home to several sites of archaeological significance and is said to be the burial place of Nabi Yunus (also known as the biblical prophet, Jonah), who is mentioned in both the Hebrew Bible and the Quran.
The Nabi Yunus Mosque stands on this presumed burial site.
Palestinian Authority officer killed in Jenin: Report
The Wafa news agency reports that that First Lieutenant Ibrahim Jumaa Al-Qaddoumi, of the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) security forces, was killed in the occupied West Bank’s Jenin refugee camp.
Brigadier General Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the authority’s security forces, said the officer died while “performing his national duty defending the security and stability of his people”.
The PA’s security forces have been engaged in weeks of armed clashes with Palestinian resistance fighters in Jenin. The fighting comes amid a campaign by the PA, titled “Protecting the Homeland”, that the authority says is focused on pursuing “criminals” and preventing the camp from becoming a battleground like Gaza.
The PA’s Rajab has also characterised the fighters in Jenin as pro-Iranian and “mercenaries”, who are aiding the Israeli far-right’s attempts to weaken the PA. The Jenin Brigades, the main target of the PA, has ties to the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but also has members affiliated with other Palestinian groups
