Ramallah – Saba:
Muayad Shaaban, head of the Palestinian Authority for Resistance Against the Wall and Settlements, reported that Israeli occupation forces and settlers carried out over 1,821 attacks during July.
In the Authority’s monthly report on "Enemy Violations and Settlement Expansion Measures," Shaaban stated that occupation forces committed 1,355 attacks, while settlers carried out 466 attacks. The majority of these assaults were concentrated in the governorates of:
- Ramallah (302 attacks)
- Hebron (300 attacks)
- Nablus (293 attacks)
He noted that the attacks varied, including armed assaults on Palestinian towns and villages, enforcing facts on the ground, field executions, land sabotage and bulldozing, uprooting trees, property seizures, and checkpoints severing Palestinian geographical ties, according to the Palestinian News Agency (WAFA).
Shaaban emphasized that the terrorist attacks by settlers targeting Palestinian towns, villages, and Bedouin communities were mainly concentrated in:
- Ramallah (126 attacks)
- Hebron (103 attacks)
- Nablus (83 attacks)
- Bethlehem (39 attacks)
He added that escalating settler terrorism is no longer an isolated phenomenon but a direct reflection of the occupying state’s policies, which actively sponsors terror, intimidation, and forced displacement, alongside the ongoing genocide in Gaza.
The settler attacks resulted in the martyrdom of 4 Palestinians in Silwad, Al-Mazra’a Al-Sharqiya (Ramallah), Al-Bireh, and the village of Um Al-Khair (south of Hebron). They also led to the forced displacement of 50 Palestinian families (267 individuals) from the Arab Al-Malihaat community in Jericho and Deir Alla in Bethlehem.
This continues the systematic enforcement of a coercive, expulsive environment, sponsored by the Zionist entity’s official institutions. The number of Bedouin communities forcibly displaced due to settler terrorism has now risen to 33 since October 7, 2023.
Additionally, settlers carried out 232 acts of sabotage and theft of Palestinian property, destroying vast areas of land and uprooting, damaging, or poisoning 2,844 trees, including 2,647 olive trees in:
- Bethlehem (1,800 trees)
- Nablus (640 trees)
- Jenin (320 trees)
Shaaban also reported that settlers attempted to establish 18 new settlement outposts since early July, mostly agricultural and pastoral, including:
- 5 in Hebron
- 2 each in Salfit, Bethlehem, Ramallah, and Jericho
- 1 each in Tubas and Jenin
Meanwhile, Israeli occupation authorities seized 31 dunams of Palestinian land through 5 military confiscation orders, aiming to establish:
- 3 buffer zones around the "Sidi Boaz" outpost (Al-Khader lands)
- One in Arab Al-Ta’amra (Bethlehem)
- Another completing a previous order near Kafr Al-Labad (Tulkarm) around the "Avnei Hefetz" settlement
Other orders targeted settler road construction in Hebron (Al-Sheikh and Sa’ir lands) and Jinsafut (Qalqilya).
In July, occupation forces demolished 122 Palestinian structures, including:
- 60 inhabited houses
- 11 uninhabited houses
- 22 agricultural facilities
- 26 livelihood sources
Most demolitions occurred in:
- Quds (53 structures)
- Ramallah (22)
- Bethlehem (18)
The occupation authorities also issued 33 demolition notices against Palestinian structures, further tightening restrictions on Palestinian construction. These were concentrated in:
- Bethlehem (19 notices)
- Hebron (6)
- Qalqilya and Tubas (3 each)
- Tulkarm and Jerusalem (1 each)
Shaaban warned that Israel has adopted a dangerous policy of intensifying demolitions while forcing Palestinians to pay demolition costs, as recently seen in Masafer Yatta.
Furthermore, Israeli planning authorities reviewed 34 structural plans for West Bank settlements and 5 within occupied Quds’s municipal boundaries in July. They approved 22 settlement plans and submitted 12 others, greenlighting 4,492 new settlement units and proposing 1,095 more on 5,268 dunams of land.
In Quds, the occupation municipality approved one plan and submitted 4 others, involving 260 settlement units on 46 dunams of Palestinian land.
Shaaban noted that the maps attached to these plans reveal Israel’s intent to gradually legalize settlement outposts around the "Eli" settlement (built on Palestinian land in Qaryut, Al-Sawiya, and Al-Lubban, Nablus), including the "Nof Harim" and "Neve Shoham" outposts, through a plan for 118 new units on 26 dunams.
| more of (International) |