WEST BANK (Dispatches) – A Palestinian official in charge of the settlement file in the north of the occupied West Bank has warned of the escalation of settler terrorist attacks against local Palestinians, Al Quds Al Arabi has reported.
“There are indications of an escalation of settler attacks, and carrying out terrorist acts against Palestinian citizens and their property,” said Ghassan Daghlas.
He made his claim at a time when the PLO’s National Office for the Defence of Land and Resistance against Settlements has recorded at least 110 attacks committed by settlers against Palestinians since the beginning of October. Half of these attacks, it confirmed, have taken place over the past ten days.
Attacks by illegal settlers against the Palestinians in the occupied territories may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of the Zionist regime’s “ethnic cleansing” of Palestine. Indeed, the very presence of settlers and the settlements in which they live is regarded as a war crime under international law.
The Chief of the General Staff of the occupying regime’s troops, Aviv Kochavi, is said to have ordered senior commanders to “repress the violence” of settlers in the occupied West Bank after the attacks prompted widespread international criticism. This contrasts with the announcement by the Zionist regime in July that it supports the “Magen” project to create a settler militia to work as reserves alongside the army and police.
Moreover, settlers are reported to have requested permission for the army to supply them with heavy-duty M4 and M16 machine guns because automatic machine pistols are inadequate for “self-defence”.
Given that settler attacks are generally against unarmed Palestinian civilians, this suggests that the settlers may be planning to escalate the severity of the attacks.
On Monday, Zionist settlers razed 180 olive trees belonging to Palestinians in the villages of Tarqumiyah and Qaryut, located northwest of Al-Khalil and Nablus, reported Arab48.
This comes in addition to the Zionist troops imposing a ban on Palestinian farmers in Beit Furik, based in eastern Nablus, from picking olives, just hours before the farm owners were due to harvest their crop.
In many instances Palestinian owners of the olive orchards have only been allowed access to their trees twice a year through special permits and coordination.
The Mayor of Beit Furik, Aref Hanani, confirmed that the occupying regime authorities violated the coordination agreement to allow Palestinian farmers to harvest olives from the area near the illegal settlement of Itamar.