The murder, which is confirmed by both the Palestinian Ministry of Health and Israeli defense sources to the newspaper Ha’aretz is said to have taken place in the town of al-Sawiya, near the Palestinian town of Nabulus and the Israeli settlement of Eli.
Witnesses to the shooting incident state Ha’aretz that the Palestinian was shot in the chest while harvesting olives with several other Palestinians.
An Israeli security source claims to the same newspaper that olive harvesting near Israeli settlements is prohibited, but at the same time states that the Palestinians who were attacked were in an area “that does not require prior coordination with the Israeli authorities”.
– These events affect Israel’s legitimacy at a strategic level and cause serious damage, says the security source.
A video mentioned in the Israeli media which is supposed to originate from the incident does not show the prelude to the shooting, but shows a group of what are supposed to be four Israeli settlers dressed in white. At one point in the video, what appears to be a gunshot can be heard.
SHOULD SHOW THE KILLING: These pictures, reproduced in Israeli media on Saturday, are supposed to show the moment after Bilal Mohammad Saleh was killed. Screenshot: X Show more
Escalating spiral of violence
The West Bank is a Palestinian territory, subject to Israeli occupation.
Israel has created 132 settlements and 146 so-called outposts contrary to international law in the occupied territories.
Several human rights organizations have reported for a long time that Palestinian farmers in the West Bank are particularly exposed to violence from Israeli settlers around the harvest season.
– For years we have observed a seasonal peak in violence from Israeli settlers against Palestinian farmers and their properties in the period leading up to the olive season, as well as during the harvest itself, said Els Debuf, head of the Red Cross’s Jerusalem branch, in 2021.
GRAVE FOLLOWING: A large number of people took part in the funeral procession on Saturday. Photo: Alaa Bardaneh / EPA / NTB Show more
In recent weeks, the violence between Israelis and Palestinians in the area has escalated violently, following Hamas’s shock attack on Israel. Israeli forces and settlers have killed more Palestinians in the West Bank than ever before.
Pictures from several news agencies show a large funeral procession in al-Sawiya on Saturday. Mourners carry the recently killed Saleh’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag, through the streets of the village, before he is buried.
Armed by the Israeli Defense Forces
The UN’s special envoy for the Middle East peace process, Tor Wennesland, already expressed this summer that he was particularly concerned about “extreme violence on the part of the settlers, including large numbers of settlers, many of them armed, who systematically attack Palestinian villages and terrorize local communities, often with the support of Israeli forces”.
Even before Hamas’ attack on Israel, 2023 was one of the deadliest years for Palestinians in the West Bank in a long time.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have distributed weapons on a large scale to the settlers in recent years. They claimed last week opposite Ha’aretz that around 2,600 IDF-issued weapons have been with settlers since July this year.
An unnamed defense source admitted at the same time that the IDF has not kept track of how many weapons have been distributed for several years, and that the real number is much higher.
Last weekend, the UN agency OCHA estimated that the number of attacks carried out by settlers against Palestinians, since the war broke out, has more than doubled.
The Israeli human rights organization BŽTselem also states that settlement violence has increased in scope, and that entire Palestinian villages have been displaced.
– They have been left to their own fate with no one to protect them. Any attempt at self-defense is met with violence from soldiers and settlers, the organization wrote in a press release last week.
2023-10-28 21:20:29
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