By Wesam Bahrani
UN demands “independent” investigation over joint army-settler attacks
TEHRAN- The United Nations has demanded that the Israeli military end its active participation with armed settlers attacking and killing Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian territory, with its ever-growing swathes of illegal settlements, has been subject to a significant rise in deadly attacks by armed settlers accompanied by Israeli soldiers over the past week.
Despite the fact there are no Israeli captives in the West Bank nor a presence by Hamas, the devastating events unfolding in the Gaza Strip have overshadowed other Israeli war crimes in the occupied territories.
As an occupying entity, Tel Aviv has a legal responsibility under international law to provide security for the Palestinian population living under its occupation.
The regime has shown little appetite for complying with international humanitarian law in the Gaza Strip. The same Israeli violations of international law have been occurring in the West Bank, with the notable difference being the scale of death and destruction.
The repeated deadly attacks by settler gangs who go on rampage in towns and villages have drawn “grave concern” from the UN. Backed by assault rifles and Israeli soldiers, the gangs kill innocent Palestinian civilians.
“Palestinians have been subjected to waves of attacks by hundreds of Israeli settlers, often accompanied or supported by Israeli Forces,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has said.
Whilst these incidents are nothing new to West Bank residents, there has been a significant surge in the last few days. Human Rights Watch says the Israeli army is “complicit” in the settler violence that is displacing Palestinian communities.
Since Friday, armed settlers, backed by the army, have killed at least eight Palestinians, including a child, a woman, and an elderly man. They have also injured many others, some left in a serious condition.
According to the UN Human Rights Office, armed settlers and Israeli forces have stormed more than ten Palestinian towns lately.
Dozens of Palestinian civilians have been injured, including “through the use of firearms, by settlers and the Israeli army, while hundreds of homes and other buildings, as well as cars, were torched,” the UN rights body said.
Before this latest wave of deadly raids, armed settlers and the Israeli army had killed nearly 500 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank since October 7, while forcibly removing hundreds of others from their indigenous 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. This obligation includes protecting Palestinians from settler attacks, and ending unlawful use of force against Palestinians by the [Israeli army],” Turk underlined.
Over the month of Ramadan, reports suggested the Israeli army had launched nearly 1,000 raids against Palestinian civilians across the West Bank.
The senior UN official demanded that the Israeli army immediately cease its “active participation in and support for settler attacks on Palestinians.”
Israeli authorities “must instead prevent further attacks, including by bringing those responsible to account,” Turk highlighted.
Both settlers and Israeli soldiers “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,” Turk said.
He emphasized that this must be done through “a prompt, impartial, independent, effective and transparent investigation.”
Experts say the chances of that happening in Tel Aviv are zero.
The cabinet of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu includes ministers who squat on illegal West Bank settlements themselves.
The Israeli security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a member of Netanyahu’s deeply divided cabinet, and a former designated terrorist, personally handed out assault rifles to his fellow settlers in the West Bank and ordered tens of thousands more for distribution to more settlers.
“I have given instructions for massively arming [the settlers],” he said in October last year.
The fascist minister’s “inflammatory comments” and “racist rhetoric” against Palestinians have even raised eyebrows in the West, yet no action has been taken to sanction Ben-Gvir, despite widespread calls to do so.
Experts say Ben-Gvir and other fascist ministers such as finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, who once publicly called for “erasing” an entire West Bank town, should have faced punishment from the West for having the blood of thousands of Palestinians on their hands during the time they have served Netanyahu’s cabinet (which hasn’t been too long).
Yet critics say in the U.S.-led Western world’s interpretation of international law, there is one rule for the Israelis and another for opponents of ethnic cleansing and genocide against the Palestinians.
On April 13, armed settler gangs, encouraged by Netanyahu’s extremist ministers and accompanied by Israeli soldiers, engaged in a large-scale attack on the village of al-Mughayyir, where they killed one Palestinian man and injured more than two dozen others.
It’s been a harrowing plight for Palestinian residents living under occupation in the West Bank for many decades. Their suffering has been made much worse after the Israeli regime got the U.S. greenlight to begin its genocidal war on Gaza.
Data released last month by the Ramallah-based Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organization showed the Israeli army had arrested more than 7,350 Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7.
Reports indicate the Israeli military continues to forcibly detain around a dozen Palestinians on an almost daily basis amid regular campaigns to arrest Palestinians across the West Bank. Nearly 70 journalists have also been arrested.
On Wednesday, Israeli forces arrested at least nine Palestinians and injured others during raids in several areas.
Palestinians have argued they have no option but to take up arms and defend their land from consistent pre-dawn Israeli military raids, at times backed by tanks and helicopters. This is on top of the occupying army storming towns and villages alongside armed settlers.
Under the shadows of the Israeli genocidal war in Gaza, the situation in the West Bank is on the verge of spiraling out of control.
TAGS
No comments:
Post a Comment