A Palestinian child has died of wounds sustained during an Israeli military raid in the Askar camp in Nablus, in the latest violence against civilians in the occupied West Bank, as a fragile ceasefire in Gaza brings little respite to Palestinians in the destroyed enclave.
Israeli forces on Friday also stormed the town of Aqaba, north of Tubas in the West Bank, and made a number of arrests earlier today in Hebron and Tal.
The Israeli army said they arrested 44 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank over the past week. A military statement says operations were carried out in various parts of the territory and all people detained were wanted by Israel. It added that troops also confiscated weapons and conducted interrogations during the operations.
Last week, 10-year-old Mohammad al-Hallaq was shot dead by Israeli forces while playing football in ar-Rihiya, Hebron.
According to the United Nations, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army and settlers since October 7, 2023, in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem.
A fifth of the victims are children, including 206 boys and seven girls, the UN said. The number also includes 20 women and at least seven people with disabilities. This does not include Palestinians who died in Israeli detention during the same period, the UN added.
A United States-brokered Gaza ceasefire deal has seen nearly 2,000 Palestinian detainees released from Israeli jails, many bearing visible signs of abuse.
Dozens of Palestinian bodies returned have been badly mutilated and show signs of torture and execution.
Meanwhile, in tandem with the military’s sustained crackdown in the occupied territory, Israeli settlers have rampaged near Ramallah, destroying Palestinian property at an alarming rate daily with impunity, protected by the military.
Settlers set fire to several Palestinian vehicles in the hill area in Deir Dibwan, east of the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, at dawn this morning, the Wafa news agency reported.
On Sunday, an Israeli settler brutally assaulted a Palestinian woman while she was harvesting olives in the West Bank town of Turmus Aya.
Afaf Abu Alia, 53, suffered a brain haemorrhage due to the attack.
“The attack started with around 10 settlers, but more kept joining,” one Palestinian witness told Al Jazeera. “I think by the end, there were 40, protected by the army. We were outnumbered; we couldn’t defend ourselves.”
According to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), settlers have attacked Palestinians nearly 3,000 times in the occupied West Bank over the past two years.
UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, said on Friday that since October 7, 2023, “the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has also witnessed a sharp escalation in violence”.
“The increasing annexation of the West Bank is happening steadily in a gross violation of international law,” UNRWA said, referring to the expansion and recognition of illegal Israeli settlements.
US lays down law to Israel on annexation
After a vote in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday advancing a bill that would formalise the annexation of the occupied West Bank, senior US officials have been adamant it won’t happen under their watch.
US President Donald Trump said on Thursday, “Israel is not going to do anything with the West Bank” amid growing condemnation of an Israeli parliamentary motion that seeks to formally annex the occupied Palestinian territory.
Earlier in the day, in an interview with Time Magazine, Trump said that the US is firmly against Israeli annexation. “It won’t happen. It won’t happen. It won’t happen because I gave my word to the Arab countries. And you can’t do that now,” Trump told Time.
US Vice President JD Vance, meanwhile, while in Israel, also said that Trump’s policy remains that the occupied West Bank won’t be annexed by Israel, calling the parliamentary vote in favour of annexation a “very stupid political stunt” that he “personally” took some insult from.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in Israel to shore up the Gaza ceasefire and second-phase plans, has also lined up in the Trump’s administration’s firm opposition to Israeli annexation.
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