NYT “The West Bank is on the brink of war due to violence against Israeli far-right settlers”

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Palestinian family head shot and killed while harvesting olives
Shooting an unarmed resident on the road… “Intentional action, not accidental”
They are trying to drive out Pal residents in anger over Hamas attacks.

The New York Times reported on the 2nd (local time) that as attacks on Palestinian residents by far-right Israeli settlers in the West Bank intensify, the conflict between the two sides is spiraling out of control.

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On the morning of the 31st of last month, Bilal Mohammad Saleh, a peddler who sells sage and thyme tea on the street, went out to harvest olives with his family. Olive trees that had been in the family for generations had been bearing fruit in abundance.

According to witnesses, four armed Israeli settlers appeared and started shouting, causing the family to stop picking olives and start running away. Saleh said he had left his cellphone behind and told his wife, “I will get it.”

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Two gunshots rang out, and Saleh, who was famous for selling fresh tea, was killed in an instant. Her father, who always made his children laugh, collapsed with his face buried in an olive grove.

While the world’s attention is focused on the Gaza war, violence is worsening to its worst level in the West Bank, which is much larger and more complex than Gaza.

The incident in which Saleh lost his life represents an increase in incidents in the West Bank that worsened after Hamas attacked Israel on the 7th of last month. Heavily armed far-right Israeli settlers, who have been unchecked for several years, are carrying out increasingly deadly attacks.

Experts believe the settlers’ violence is an attempt to scare Palestinians away by citing anger over Hamas attacks on Israel.

“This land is ours,” said Dov Sedaka, an Israeli reserve general who works at a foundation that supports Israeli-Palestinian cooperation. “It’s a strategy that says we will kick you out no matter what the means,” he said, adding, “It’s terrible.”

◆Israeli military turns a blind eye to settler violence in the West Bank

He said that Israeli soldiers, who are struggling with the war in Gaza and the brutal attacks by Hamas, are increasingly failing to comply with their obligations to protect Palestinian residents in the West Bank and “turn a blind eye to far-right settlers without stopping them.”

Settlers in the West Bank are attacking Palestinian families and businesses, blowing up generators and solar panels, burning Bedouin nomad tents and shooting them.

UN officials say that since the 7th of last month, Israel Defense Forces and armed settlers have killed more than 120 Palestinians in the West Bank. Most of them died during clashes with Israeli troops.

According to UN statistics, even before the Hamas attack, violence by settlers increased to an all-time high. From once a day in the mid-2000s, it has now increased to seven times.

In addition, as the number of Palestinian youth protesting the endless bombing of the Gaza Strip is increasing, clashes with the Israeli military are becoming more frequent. There are many instances of clashes occurring during the Israeli military’s nighttime anti-terrorism surprise operations as they enter narrow alleys in densely populated areas.

The West Bank is on the verge of explosion. If the Gaza war expands to the West Bank, there is great concern that a catastrophic situation will occur.

Palestinian residents and human rights activists accuse Israel’s right-wing government of worsening the situation. Ministers who support settlement expansion provide more weapons to settlers.

◆Israeli right-wing government increases arms supply to settlers

Attacks on settlers by Palestinian residents have also increased significantly since the mid-2000s. According to Israeli officials, on the 2nd, Palestinian residents also opened fire on a vehicle, killing the settler driver.

Israel occupied the Gaza Strip and the West Bank during the 1967 war, but withdrew and blockaded the Gaza Strip in 2005. Israel continues to occupy the West Bank, preventing the creation of a Palestinian state, restricting the movement of Palestinians, and prosecuting them in Israeli courts. On the other hand, settlers face no restrictions. The Israeli military is strictly controlling the area by blocking roads and ordering Palestinian residents to stay out of the streets.

The number of Israeli settlements is growing rapidly, reaching over 130. Most countries consider this illegal.

Settlements surrounded by barriers and barbed wire on strategically advantageous hills dot the cities controlled by the Palestinian Authority. There are approximately 500,000 Jews living in the West Bank and 2.7 million Palestinians.

Many settlers do not recognize Palestinians’ land ownership. It is claimed that this is a place where Jews have lived since Biblical times and was regained through war decades ago.

“Palestinians say all the land in the Middle East is theirs,” said Naomi Khan, who works at a non-profit organization supporting settlers. “No matter what, we can’t admit it.”

In recent days, threatening leaflets that appear to have been created by far-right settlers have been placed between the wipers on the windshields of Palestinian vehicles.

◆ Threatening leaflets distributed saying, “A great disaster will soon occur.”

The leaflet said, “A great disaster will soon fall upon your head. We will defeat all enemies and force you out of the sacred land that God has accepted as ours. Wherever you are, immediately pack your bags and leave for where you originally lived. “We will be there soon,” it said.

Sam Stein, an American who has been campaigning for peace in the West Bank for several years, said the recent violence was “not a random act of hate, but part of a plan to preserve Jewish history in the West Bank.”

Settlers are allowed to be armed, but Palestinian residents are not. As a result, Palestinian residents are often unilaterally harmed.

On the 13th of last month, Zakariya al-Arda, a Palestinian construction worker living in the small town of At-Twani in the West Bank, was walking along a hill with eight friends after evening prayers. Not a single one of them was armed.

A settler from Habat Maon, a settlement located at a post adjacent to At-Tunami, which is illegal under Israeli law, was coming down the hill with a rifle. He hit Arda in the stomach with the butt of his rifle. When al-Arda resisted, Maon shot him.

The bullet penetrated the abdomen just below the lungs, but did not kill him. This incident threw the entire Palestinian village into fear.

“We didn’t do anything to the settlers,” said al-Adra’s brother Khaled. They continue to abuse us, plunder our property and threaten our lives. “What are you telling us to do?” he said.

◆Palestinians are not allowed to be armed

Boaz Natan, a reserve soldier in charge of security in the Habat Maon settlement, said he knew about the incident but “didn’t want to judge whether it was justified or not.” However, he added that the Settlement Security Committee immediately confiscated the gun of the settler who fired the gun, adding, “This is a measure to prevent people from making their own decisions.”

According to the Israel Defense Forces, Israeli police are investigating the incident.

Palestinian leaders say what is happening in Gaza and the West Bank is something they have never seen before.

“Israel says it has the right to respond,” said Mustafa Barghouti, a senior Palestinian lawmaker. “How many Palestinians have to die for this to stop?” he said.

The family of Saleh, who was murdered in an olive grove, cannot escape the shock.

He lived in the village of Al Sawiya, north of Jerusalem. The 40-year-old barely supported his four children by selling fresh herbs in Ramallah, the largest city in the West Bank.

An off-duty soldier was detained and interrogated “on suspicion” of firing a military-issued weapon, according to an Israel Defense Forces spokesman. The spokesperson added that Israeli soldiers are expected to intervene if they are at the scene of violence.

However, Bilal’s cousin, Mohammad Yasser Saleh, said he witnessed the entire shooting incident while an Israeli soldier was sitting in a jeep on a hill. The Israel Defense Forces refused to say why he did not intervene in the incident.

The children are unable to escape the shock of their father’s death.

8-year-old Musa remembers exactly what his father was doing before he was shot. “Dad held me and danced with me and I burst into laughter. “When my dad put me up in the olive tree, he said, ‘Let’s see how many olives you can pick,’” he said.

Israel-Palestine War

Source: Donga

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