Sputnik
The United Nations released a report Thursday urging Israel to end “unlawful killings” in the West Bank, citing a “rapidly deteriorating human rights situation.”
The report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) cited the use of heavy handed tactics by security officials leading to “arbitrary detention and ill-treatment of Palestinians” as well as “discriminatory movement restrictions.”
“The UN Human Rights Office has verified the deaths of 300 Palestinians from 7 October to 27 December 2023 – including 79 children – in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem,” read a news releaseaccompanying the report. Of those deaths, 201 involved no exchange of fire from the victim while 105 were caused by airstrikes and similar use of military force.
“The use of military tactics means and weapons in law enforcement contexts, the use of unnecessary or disproportionate force, and the enforcement of broad, arbitrary and discriminatory movement restrictions that affect Palestinians are extremely troubling,” read a statement from UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk.
“I call on Israel to take immediate, clear and effective steps to put an end to settler violence against the Palestinian population, to investigate all incidents of violence by settlers and Israeli Security Forces, to ensure effective protection of Palestinian communities against any form of forcible transfer, and to ensure the ability of herding communities displaced due to repeated attacks by armed settlers to return to their lands.”
Sputnik
The growing crisis in the West Bank is fraught with the risk of sparking a regional war in the Middle East, as Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in his recent blog post.
While the Joe Biden administration appears to have turned a blind eye to mounting civilian casualties in Gaza, the US president is concerned about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's attacks on the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, according to Hersh.
"Steadily increasing violence committed there against the Palestinian population by Israeli settlers, who are openly supported by the IDF and the extremists that now dominate Israeli politics, has triggered alarms in Washington," the investigative journalist wrote, quoting a US official with access to sensitive information.
"The official told me that 'Bibi’s continuing campaign' in the West Bank 'is complicating Israel’s efforts to create favorable arrangements in Gaza after the war ends,' and the violence has become a 'huge obstacle' for the Biden administration."
The most ardent supporter of tougher measures against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip and in the West Bank is National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, a lawyer and right-wing politician. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist noted that Biden was "uncharacteristically caustic about Gvir", suggesting that the minister and his allies are against the two-state solution.
According to Hersh's source, the crucial question faced by US intelligence analysts "is whether there is going to be a regional war" in the Middle East if Tel Aviv continues to ignore the growing crisis in the West Bank. That question is "up in the air" given Netanyahu's ongoing legal predicament and the backing he needs from Ben Gvir and his supporters.
Commenting on the prospects of the two-state solution in the Middle East, the intelligence official noted that "there is a lot of behind-the-scenes back-and-forth."
2 comments:
When the West Bank erupts in Palestinian violence Israeli citizens will take up arms like the American minuteman in 1775 and open fire.
Those that live by the sword will die by the sword. Yeshua made that clear.
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