NEW YORK (Dispatches) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, has warned that the Zionist regime’s decision to expand the licensing of firearms for settlers will lead to further violence against Palestinians.
“Plans by Israel to expedite and expand the licensing of firearms, with the stated intention of adding thousands of [Zionist] civilians carrying firearms – coupled with hateful rhetoric – can only lead to further violence and bloodshed,” Turk said in a statement.
“We know from experience that the proliferation of firearms will lead to increased risks of killings and injuries. The Israeli authorities must work to reduce the availability of firearms in society,” he added.
The United Nations has said the Zionist regime has killed dozens of Palestinians and either destroyed or confiscated scores of Palestinian-owned structures across the occupied West Bank within an interval of about three weeks in January.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Palestine offered the grim data in its biweekly Protection of Civilians report that covered the period between January 10 and 30, the official Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
According to the report, the fatalities included as many as 10 Palestinians who were killed during a January 26 raid by Zionist troops on the city of Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp in northern West Bank. The death toll, which included two children and one woman, was the highest caused in a single operation by the occupying regime since 2005, when OCHA began keeping a record of Palestinian casualties.
Overall, 441 Palestinians, including 49 children, were injured by the regime troops throughout that period, the report noted, adding that 74 (18 percent) of those injured were targeted with Zionist troops’ live fire.
Zionist settlers also injured 18 Palestinians, including at least one child, in nine incidents, and caused damage to Palestinians’ properties in another 42 instances.
During the same period, the regime authorities demolished, forced owners to demolish or confiscated 88 Palestinian-owned structures throughout the occupied territory.
The structures, which included 21 homes, were targeted for lacking Israeli-issued building permits, which are almost impossible to obtain.
“As a result, 99 Palestinians, including 54 children, were displaced, and the livelihoods of more than 21,000 others were affected,” the report said.
In another development, Zionist troops arrested nearly two dozen Palestinians, among them a senior member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, in raids across the occupied West Bank.
Palestinian Prisoner’s Media Office reported Sunday that the occupation troops had detained Khader Adnan in his hometown of Arraba near the city of Jenin.
Adnan, 44, had been arrested after Zionist troops raided his home and terrorized his family in the middle of the night, the Palestinian Wafa news agency reported.
The Islamic Jihad member has been arrested several times in recent years and served several prison sentences. He has also gone on hunger strike several times over the occupying regime’s so-called policy of administrative detention.
Other Palestinians, who were mostly young, were taken into the regime’s custody in the West Bank villages of Ajjah and Bir al-Basha and the towns of Bani Na’im and Beit Fajjar.