The UN expresses its shock. This Thursday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on Israel to “put an end to the unlawful killings” of the Palestinian population in the occupied West Bank, condemning the rapid deterioration of the human rights situation in the area.
“The use of military tactics and weapons for law enforcement purposes, the use of unnecessary and disproportionate force, and the application of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory restrictions on movement affecting Palestinians are extremely alarming,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in his report. statement. “The intensity of violence and repression has been unheard of for many years,” he added.
“Sharp increase in settler attacks” since October 7
The report focuses on the human rights situation in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, annexed by Israel between October 7, the date of the bloody Hamas offensive in Israel, and November 20. It calls for an immediate end to the use of weapons and military means in law enforcement operations, as well as an end to arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of Palestinians, and the lifting of restrictions on discriminatory movements.
The report during the study period showed a “dramatic increase” in airstrikes and incursions into refugee camps and other densely populated areas, which resulted in “deaths, injuries and significant damage” to civilian infrastructure. In the weeks following October 7, the report noted a “sharp increase in settler attacks” with “shootings, burning of houses and vehicles, and uprooting of trees.”
Volker Türk called on Israel to “take immediate, clear and effective measures to end settler violence against the Palestinian population, to investigate all violent incidents involving settlers and Israeli security forces, to ensure the effective protection of Palestinian communities from any form of forced displacement and ensure the return of pastoral communities displaced by armed settler attacks to their lands.
Deaths of 300 Palestinians studied
The UN human rights office says it has verified the deaths of 300 Palestinians, including 79 children, between October 7 and December 27 in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Of this total, “Israeli security forces killed at least 291 Palestinians, settlers killed eight, and one Palestinian was killed by either Israeli security forces or settlers.”
According to the same source, up to October 7, 7,200 Palestinians had already been killed in the area in 2023, the highest ten-month total since 2005, when the UN began recording these deaths. He said Volker Türk called on Israel to provide access to his office in the country, ready to prepare a similar report on the October 7 attacks.
The war, sparked by the Hamas attack, has killed more than 21,000 people in the Gaza Strip, including 6,300 women and 8,800 children, according to the Health Ministry of the ruling Hamas administration in the Gaza enclave. In Israel, the attack killed about 1,140 people on the Israeli side, most of them civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse tally based on the latest Israeli official data.
About 250 people have been kidnapped by Hamas, 129 of whom remain in custody in Gaza, according to Israel, which has vowed to “destroy” the Palestinian Islamist movement, which has held power since 2007 in the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for its unprecedented attack. So far, 167 Israeli soldiers have been killed, including three on Wednesday, during the ground offensive in the Gaza Strip, the army said Thursday morning.
Source: Le Parisien
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