GENEVA (Dispatches) – The United Nations humanitarian office accused the Zionist regime on Friday of using “war-like” tactics against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, citing killings by soldiers and attacks on Palestinian olive groves by Israeli settlers.
This month so far, OCHA has received reports that settlers have carried out 32 attacks against Palestinians and their properties, including on their slow-growing olive trees, OCHA said. The latest was a woman killed while harvesting her olives in Jenin on Thursday, the agency said.
“It is, frankly, very concerning that it’s not only attacks on people, but it’s attacks on their olive groves as well,” OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke said at a Geneva press briefing. “The olive harvest is an economic lifeline for tens of thousands of Palestinian families in the West Bank,” he added, saying that UN agencies were assessing how they can support them.
In total, around 600 mainly olive trees have been burnt, vandalized or stolen by settlers, the agency said in a report that showed a Palestinian man standing next to an olive tree stump with its branches sawn off.
The Israeli mission in Geneva did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Violence has surged in the West Bank since the Zionist regime’s aggression on Oct.7 last year. OCHA says nine Palestinians were killed by Zionist troops there between Oct. 8-14, including one child.
“Israeli forces have been using lethal, war-like tactics in the West Bank, raising serious concerns over excessive use of force and deepening people’s humanitarian needs,” said Laerke.
He added that Zionist troops had accused most of those killed of being involved in attacking Israelis.
Earlier this month, the World Food Programme said that violence and the spillover effect of the Gaza war had nearly doubled the number of people facing food insecurity in the West Bank to 600,000 people.
Settler violence is a source of growing concern among the Zionist regime’s Western allies. A number of countries, including the United States, have imposed sanctions on violent settlers and urged Israel to do more to stop the violence.