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Report: Violence Against West Bank Palestinians Is Up
Farming is the mainstay of the Palestinian communities around the West Bank village of Yanoun. Animals graze the land, and Palestinians make their living by harvesting citrus fruits and olives.
Last Saturday, Palestinians say, a group of Jewish settlers killed some of the sheep belonging to the Bani Jabr family. Palestinians say its part of a regular pattern of harassment in the area by settlers.
Ibrahim Bani Jabr, who received a cut across his right eye that needed 12 stitches, alleges that Israeli soldiers hit him with a rifle butt to the head when he tried to stop the slaughter of his sheep on land that belongs to his family.
Four other Palestinians were injured. The Palestinians say not only did the army beat the villagers, but they also allowed the settlers to attack them. Both the settlers and the army deny the allegations, saying the Palestinians were the aggressors and the army acted to defuse the clashes.
Settler Attacks On Palestinians
Overall, violence between Israelis and Palestinians has been at relatively low levels the past couple of years.
But violence by Jewish settlers living in the occupied West Bank has increased dramatically, according to several United Nations agencies, as well as Israeli and Palestinian groups that monitor the violence. A report released by these groups this week says settler attacks on Palestinians have increased by 150 percent in the past three years. More than 150 attacks have been reported in the first half of this year.
There are more than 100 Israeli settlements in the West Bank where more than 300,000 Jewish settlers live. The international community views them as illegal under international law. However, every Israeli government has permitted settlement building since Israel took the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast War. The current Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netenyahu, has been a particularly strong proponent of settlement building.
According to the new report, that growing population is one of the reasons there is a surge in violent confrontations between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank.
The report says militant settlers are using violence as a tool in their campaign to take over more territory.
“Violence is a means of displacing Palestinians and expanding the settlements in a very explicit way,” says Jessica Montell, who heads the Israeli human rights group B’tselem.
Pictured: Jewish settlers in the West Bank throw stones during clashes with Palestinians near the city of Nablus on May 19. A new report says violence by settlers directed at West Bank Palestinians is up sharply over the past three years. Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images
