UN requests that Israeli soldiers cease ‘immediately’ enabling settler violence against Palestinians

The UN demanded on Tuesday that Israeli security forces “immediately” cease assisting settler assaults on Palestinians in the occupied region, expressing deep worry about the rising violence in the West Bank.

The Palestinians in the West Bank were “subjected to waves of attacks by hundreds of Israeli settlers, often accompanied or supported by Israeli security forces (ISF)” the UN rights office said, amid the blazing Gaza conflict.

Rights office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva, “The Israeli security forces must immediately end their active participation in and support for settler attacks on Palestinians.”

“Israeli authorities must instead prevent further attacks, including by bringing those responsible to account.”

She pointed out that “those reasonably suspected of criminal acts, including murder or other unlawful killings, must be brought to justice through a judicial process that complies with international human rights standards, following a prompt, impartial, independent, effective and transparent investigation” .

Shamdasani said that “four Palestinians, including a child, were killed and Palestinian property was destroyed in revenge attacks” after a 14-year-old Israeli kid from a settler family was killed over the weekend.

She said that “armed settlers and Israeli forces” have infiltrated many towns and villages, according to information obtained by the UN rights office.

“Dozens of Palestinians were reportedly injured, including through the use of firearms, by settlers and ISF, and hundreds of homes and other buildings, as well as cars, were torched,” she said.

“Three Israeli soldiers suffered injuries after they were hit with stones,” she said.

On Sunday, April 14, 2024, in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians assemble next to Omar Hamed’s corpse during his burial in the hamlet of Beitin, close to the West Bank city of Ramallah. Since the start of the Gaza War, Israeli settlers have been going after Palestinians in the occupied West Bank more violently than ever before. On Saturday, the Israeli army said that a teenage Israeli who had gone missing had been slain in a “terrorist attack.”
Residents of three Palestinian communities in the West Bank fled, blaming Israeli settlement violence.
The UN also emphasized allegations that in the last several days, settlers have built at least two additional outposts in the South Hebron Hills and Jordan Valley.

The outposts, according to her, were “near Palestinian communities which have been repeatedly attacked by settlers in the past months and are at imminent risk of being forcibly transferred from their homes and land” .

“Israel, as the occupying power, must take all measures in its power to restore, and ensure, as far as possible, public order and safety in the occupied West Bank,” she said.

“This obligation includes protecting Palestinians from settler attacks, and ending unlawful use of force against Palestinians by the ISF.”

Since the beginning of the year, there has been an increase in violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, especially after the Israel-Hamas conflict broke out in Gaza on October 7.

Official Palestinian sources claim that since October 7, Israeli soldiers and settlers have murdered at least 468 Palestinians across the West Bank.