<\/p>\n
27 January 2025<\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s intensified military assault against the occupied West Bank marks a dangerous escalation against Palestinians, independent human rights experts* warned today, urging the international community to take principled action to protect the human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are dismayed by the escalation of deadly violence sweeping through Jenin and the rest of the occupied West Bank,\u201d the experts said. \u201cIsrael’s repression seems to have no end in sight.\u201d<\/p>\n
After weeks of tension and crackdown on the northern West Bank by Palestinian Security forces, the recent scenes of Israeli military and security forces bombing Jenin, destroying vital infrastructure, essential services such as water and electricity, raiding hundreds of homes, preventing the Palestinian Red Crescent medics from reaching injured Palestinians, attacking large crowds of Palestinian residents in the Jenin Refugee Camp and neighbouring cities are only aggravating a deeply unstable situation in the occupied West Bank, the experts said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA militarised attack only deepens suffering and violence,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn alarming number of civilians from the occupied West Bank and especially Jenin refugee camp have already been detained and at least 16 people killed, including a child that was shot in the head, while at least 3,000 families have been displaced. The Israeli Government must instruct its military and security forces to immediately cease any use of excessive force and exercise restraint and withdraw its troops from the occupied West Bank, as ordered by the\u00a0International Court of Justice<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(ICJ) in July 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n These acts of aggression are not new for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, the experts noted.<\/p>\n In fact, systematic aerial and ground attacks on Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem and Tubas governorates, particularly targeting refugee camps, have been a feature of the Israeli assault on the West Bank since 7 October 2023. At the end of August 2024, Israeli occupation forces launched a full-scale military operation against these areas, killing at least 39 Palestinians, including women and children and injuring dozens. In December, at the behest of the Israelis, Palestinian Security Forces attacked Jenin refugee camp, resulting in killings and injuries of Palestinians, including children and one journalist. The Palestinian Security Forces withdrew from Jenin as Israel started their latest attack on the city. \u201cThe continuity of the violence against Palestinians in the area speaks for itself,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n They also noted their concern about the continued detention of journalists by Palestinian and Israeli security forces and the recent banning of the news organisation Al Jazeera in the West Bank by Palestinian authorities, similar to the ban adopted by Israel in May 2024.<\/p>\n The experts were gravely concerned about comments by the Israeli Defence Minister that sought to justify the new onslaught as a response against \u201cPalestinian terrorism.\u201d The Minister invoked the concept of \u201cthe iron\u201d wall, coined by Jabotinsky, a founder of Zionism, to argue for a crushing, unyielding defence.<\/p>\n \u201cThe new attacks come in the wake of a US decision to lift limited sanctions on Israeli settlers, and by Israeli authorities to remove administrative detention and other sanctions for Israeli settler violence, effectively offering a greenlight for more unchecked violence against the Palestinian people,\u201d the experts said.<\/p>\n The violence in the occupied West Bank coincides with unprecedented levels of increased colonies\u2019 expansion, armed settler violence, displacement, depopulation and land confiscation by the State of Israel including through settler militias. These violations continue even after the ICJ concluded that this occupation is unlawful, and Israel must dismantle it together with the colonies and its associated regime.<\/p>\n \u201cThe heightened assault on the occupied West Bank is part of an overall process of Palestinian forced displacement and replacement and the territorial expansion of Israel,\u201d the experts said. \u201cThis is not an isolated action,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of forces pursuing their elimination as a group,\u201d the experts warned.<\/p>\n \u201cThe lack of intervention by States to protect Palestinians in line with international law, is alarming and of catastrophic ramifications,\u201d the experts said, urging the international community to urgently step in to stop Israel\u2019s assault on Palestinians.<\/p>\n \u201cLike other indigenous peoples before them, the Palestinian people seem to have been abandoned to their fate. We cannot let it happen; this would be the greatest failure of the human rights system.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n *The experts:\u00a0Francesca Albanese<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0Paula Gaviria Betancur<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0George Katrougalos,<\/strong>\u00a0Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order<\/a><\/em>; Irene Khan<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the right to freedom of opinion and expression<\/a><\/em>;\u00a0Tlaleng Mofokeng<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health<\/a><\/em>:\u00a0Gina Romero<\/strong>,\u00a0Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association;<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Reem Alsalem,<\/strong>\u00a0Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls, its causes and consequences<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 27 January 2025 Israel\u2019s intensified military assault against the occupied West Bank marks a dangerous escalation against Palestinians, independent human rights experts* warned today, urging the international community to take principled action to protect the human rights and dignity of the Palestinian people. \u201cWe are dismayed by the escalation of deadly violence sweeping through […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[6924,6726,5990,6822,5025,6854,4754],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1741,1745,6245,6251],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542],"class_list":["post-305477","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-press-release","document-source-independent-expert-on-international-order","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-human-rights-of-internally-displaced-persons","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-promotion-and-protection-of-the-right-to-freedom-of-opinion-and-expression","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-right-of-everyone-to-the-enjoyment-of-the-highest-attainable-standard-of-physical-and-mental-health","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-right-to-peaceful-assembly-and-association","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-the-situation-of-human-rights-in-the-palestinian-territories-occupied-since-1967","document-source-special-rapporteur-on-violence-against-women-and-girls-its-causes-and-consequences","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-human-rights-and-international-humanitarian-law","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","document-subject-violence","document-subject-west-bank","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/305477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/305477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":305577,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/305477\/revisions\/305577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=305477"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=305477"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=305477"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=305477"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=305477"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=305477"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=305477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}