Palestinian MFA wants settler organizations on terror list
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The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has called for adding Israeli settler organizations on international terror lists with sanctions to compel "Israel" to dismantle and disarm them."
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Abdelazim Wadi, 50, holds up a poster commemorating his brother, Ibrahim Wadi, and his nephew, Ahmed Wadi, who was killed by Israeli settlers during a funeral procession on Oct. 12 in the rural Palestinian village of Qusra, West Bank, Palestine, Sunday, Nov. 12, 2023 (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)
The Palestinian Authority's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has criticized the rise of violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied territories, demanding that the groups be listed as international terrorist organizations.
In a Wednesday statement, the ministry called for adding Israeli settler organizations to international terror lists as this might hinder them from expanding their occupation of Palestine.
The statement detailed that “The aim is to link the international and American stance rejecting the terrorism of settler militias with sanctions to compel "Israel" to dismantle and disarm them."
The current Israeli government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, has adopted a fierce, violent expansionist policy in the occupied West Bank. Arming settlers with assault rifles has been a trademark of the occupation's Police Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Head of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, Moayad Shaaban, told reporters in Ramallah that “the occupation authorities and their settlers carried out 12,161 attacks, including 5,308 after October 7."
Additionally, the occupation has protected extremists who have desecrated religious sanctities in al-Quds. All previously mentioned violations, among others, motivated the Palestinian Resistance in the Gaza Strip to launch Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, which exposed the occupation's fragility.
Recently, Anadolu Agency reported that Israeli authorities and illegal settlers engaged in over 12,000 attacks in the last year.
While all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law, the occupying authority has increased settlement development in flagrant disregard of UNSC resolutions.
Shaaban detailed that Israeli settlers were responsible for 2,410 of the attacks, adding that 25 Bedouin villages were uprooted in the West Bank and the eastern part of Al-Quds this year, with 22 of them following Operation Al-Aqsa Flood. The villages include 266 households and a total population of 1,517 Palestinians.
According to the official, 21,731 trees were chopped down and damaged during the last year, including 18,964 olive trees, and Israeli officials seized about 50,000 dunams of land under different pretexts.
2023; deadliest year for Palestinian children
UNICEF deemed 2023 the deadliest year on record for youths in the occupied West Bank, attributing the surge to heightened Israeli police and military interventions, aggravated by the ongoing situation in Gaza.
In a statement released last month, UNICEF highlighted a surge in "conflict-related violence" in the occupied West Bank this year, revealing that 83 children were killed in the past 12 weeks, surpassing the total for the entire year of 2022 by more than double.
“Children living in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, have been experiencing grinding violence for many years, yet the intensity of that violence has dramatically increased" since October 7, the agency added.
