[🇮🇱] Israel's War on West Bank

[Saif]

West Bank seeing largest displacement since 1967

The UN warned yesterday that mass displacement in the West Bank had hit levels not seen since the start of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory nearly 60 years ago.

www.thedailystar.net

West Bank seeing largest displacement since 1967
Warns UN, raises concerns about possible ‘ethnic cleansing’ by Israeli forces

The UN warned yesterday that mass displacement in the West Bank had hit levels not seen since the start of Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territory nearly 60 years ago.

The United Nations said an Israeli military operation launched in the north of the occupied territory in January had displaced tens of thousands of people, raising concerns about possible "ethnic cleansing".

The military operation "has been the longest since ... the second Intifada", in the early 2000s, said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

"It is impacting several refugee camps in the area, and it is causing the largest population displacement of the Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967," she told reporters in Geneva via video from Jordan, referring to the six-day Arab-Israeli war that led to Israel's occupation of the West Bank.

The UN rights office meanwhile warned that mass forced displacement by an occupation force could amount to "ethnic cleansing".

Since Israel's military launched its operation "Iron Wall" in the north of the West Bank in January, rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said that "about 30,000 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced".

Israeli security forces had during the same period issued demolition orders for about 1,400 homes in the northern West Bank, he said, describing the figures as "alarming".

He pointed out that Israeli demolitions had displaced 2,907 Palestinians across the West Bank since October 2023.

Another 2,400 Palestinians -- nearly half of them children -- had been displaced as a result of Israeli settler actions, he added, lamenting that the combined result was the "emptying large parts of the West Bank of Palestinians".

"Permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer," Kheetan said, stressing that depending on the circumstances this could be "tantamount to ethnic cleansing" and could "amount to a crime against humanity".

Kheetan said 757 attacks by Israeli settlers had been recorded in the West Bank during the first half of the year, a 13 percent increase on the same period in 2024.

The attacks injured 96 Palestinians in the occupied territory in June alone, he told reporters, stressing that this was the highest monthly injury toll of Palestinians from settler attacks, "in over two decades".b​

 

[Saif]

US envoy urges accountability in West Bank church attack

The US ambassador to Israel on Saturday visited a Christian village in the occupied West Bank and urged accountability for an attack on an ancient church, which residents have blamed on Israeli settlers...

www.newagebd.net

US envoy urges accountability in West Bank church attack
Agence France-Presse . Taybeh, Palestinian Territories 20 July, 2025, 01:31

The US ambassador to Israel on Saturday visited a Christian village in the occupied West Bank and urged accountability for an attack on an ancient church, which residents have blamed on Israeli settlers.

In early July, the village of Taybeh was hit by an arson attack in the area of the ruins of the Byzantine-era Church of Saint George, which dates back to the fifth century.

Residents blamed settlers for the assault, which comes as violence soars in the West Bank and last week saw an American-Palestinian man killed near Ramallah.

Ambassador Mike Huckabee, an evangelical Christian and staunch advocate for Israel, said his trip to Taybeh aimed to ‘express solidarity with the people who just want to live their lives in peace, to be able to go to their own land, to be able to go to their place of worship’.

‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s a mosque, a church, a synagogue,’ he told journalists.

‘It’s unacceptable to commit an act of sacrilege by desecrating a place that is supposed to be a place of worship.’

‘We will certainly insist that those who carry out acts of terror and violence in Taybeh or anywhere be found, be prosecuted, not just reprimanded. That’s not enough,’ he said.

‘People need to pay a price for doing something that destroys that which belongs not just to other people, but that which belongs to God.’

In the villages and communities around Taybeh, Palestinian authorities reported that settlers had killed three people and damaged or destroyed multiple water sources in the past two weeks alone.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since 1967 and violence has surged in the territory since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

Since then, Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 957 Palestinians, including many militants, in the West Bank, according to health ministry figures.

Over the same period, at least 36 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations, according to official figures.

Huckabee, who has for years been an outspoken supporter of Jewish settlement in the Palestinian territories, on Tuesday demanded an aggressive investigation and consequences after settlers beat to death a Palestinian-American in the West Bank.

It was a sign of rare public pressure against US ally Israel by president Donald Trump’s administration.​

 

[Saif]

The West Bank settlements at the heart of the Middle East conflict

Israeli settlement building, a point of contention at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has come back into focus after Israel's far-right finance minister revived a plan that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem. WHAT IS A SETTLEMENT? An Israeli settlement is

thefinancialexpress.com.bd

The West Bank settlements at the heart of the Middle East conflict

REUTERS
Published :
Aug 14, 2025 19:30
Updated :
Aug 14, 2025 19:30

A view of part of the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, August 14, 2025. Photo : REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Israeli settlement building, a point of contention at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has come back into focus after Israel's far-right finance minister revived a plan that would divide the West Bank and cut it off from East Jerusalem.

WHAT IS A SETTLEMENT?

An Israeli settlement is made up of housing units built for Jewish Israelis on land captured by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war, primarily in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

The land is home to Palestinians who seek a future independent state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nationalist government has backed settlers, and building and settler incursions have ramped up since the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023 triggered the Gaza war.

Palestinians have accused heavily armed Israeli settlers of stealing their land and destroying their olive trees, a symbol of Palestinian identity.

Palestinians say Israeli forces do not protect them from settler violence. The Israeli military says soldiers are often dispatched to deal with any trouble.

WHAT DOES ISRAEL SAY ABOUT SETTLEMENTS?

Israel says it has historical and biblical ties to the area that it calls it Judea and Samaria, though most world powers consider all the settlements illegal.

Numerous UN Security Council resolutions have called on Israel to halt all settlement activity, but Israel says settlements are critical to its strategic depth and security.

In 2019, during US President Donald Trump's first term, the US dropped a long-held stance that deemed settlements illegal. President Joe Biden restored that stance in line with international consensus.

In January, in his second term, Trump rescinded sanctions imposed by the former Biden administration on far-right Israeli settler groups and individuals accused of being involved in violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

HOW SETTLEMENTS AFFECT THE IDEA OF A TWO-STATE SOLUTION

A 1993 agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), known as the Oslo Accords, was designed to pave the way for the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip alongside Israel.

The UN and most world powers say settlement building is eroding the viability of that two-state solution by fragmenting Palestinian territory.

Israel's allies, including France, Britain and Canada, have said they may move to recognise Palestinian statehood in September.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT STATUS OF SETTLEMENTS?

Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the West Bank as it continues its war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, according to a UN report that was based on research between November 1, 2023 and October 31, 2024.

About 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognised by most countries.

Israel refuses to cede control of the West Bank, a position it says has been reinforced since the Hamas-led militant attack on its territory, launched from Gaza October 7, 2023.

It says the future of the settlements should be resolved in peace negotiations.​