Violence attributed to Israeli settlers against Palestinians
living in the West Bank has worsened in recent months, amidst “an
atmosphere of impunity”, UN-appointed independent rights experts
said
on Wednesday.
Highlighting more than 210 incidents already this year and one
Palestinian fatality, the Special Rapporteurs urged the Israeli
authorities to investigate thoroughly, maintaining that the
Israeli military were present “in many cases”.
Children traumatized
In southern Hebron on 13 March, they described how a Palestinian
family was attacked by 10 Israeli settlers, some of them armed.
The injured parents were treated at a medical facility and their
eight children were left traumatized, said the experts, including
Michael Lynk, Special Rapporteur on the
situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied
since 1967.
The alert follows 771 incidents of settler violence causing
injury to 133 Palestinians and damaging 9,646 trees and 184
vehicles, “mostly in the areas of Hebron, Jerusalem, Nablus and
Ramallah”, the experts said, citing data gathered by the UN
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
Intimidation
In the joint statement, Mr. Lynk said that settler violence was
“ideologically motivated and primarily designed to take over land
but also to intimidate and terrorize Palestinians”.
Pregnant women, young children and older people were not
off-limits, the rights expert explained, particularly in rural
areas, where livestock, agricultural lands, trees and homes were
targeted.
Together with the expansion of Israeli settlements, the settler
violence was intended to make the daily lives of Palestinians
“untenable”.
Eviction notice
Also of continuing concern are reports that more than 70 families
in the Karm Al-Ja’buni area of Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem
face forced eviction, to make way for new settlements, the rights
experts added.
Seven households have already received eviction orders to vacate
their homes by 2 May 2021.
“Such forced evictions leading to population transfers are
strictly prohibited under international law”, the experts said.
They pointed to data from Israeli human rights organisation, Yesh
Din, indicating that between 2005 and 2019, 91 percent of
investigations in cases filed by Palestinians for ideologically
motivated crimes were closed without indicting the Israeli
military.
‘Systematic impunity’
“This number is abysmal when compared to the number and nature of
crimes committed by Israeli settlers and it testifies more than
anything to the institutional and systematic impunity that
prevails in the occupied Palestinian territory,” the experts
insisted.
Under international law, occupying powers must protect the
population under occupation, they continued.
Article 27 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stipulates the
protected population “shall at all times be humanely treated, and
shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or
threats,” they added.
Independent rights experts are part of the Special Procedures of
the UN Human Rights
Council. They work on a voluntary basis, are not staff, and
do not receive any salary for their work.
