The last week has seen an escalation of settler attacks against several Palestinian villages in the Nablus Governorate.
Yesterday, Saturday 25 December, 247 Palestinians were injured following an attack by Israeli occupation forces and extremist settlers on the village of Burqa, to the north of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
The Red Crescent has reported “10 injuries due to live fire in the town of Burqa, one of whom is in a critical condition, 48 injuries with rubber bullets, two of whom were transferred to the hospital, and 185 injuries caused by tear gas.”
Israeli occupation forces closed Burqa’s main entrance in order to allow settlers from the evacuated Homash settlement to stage a march.
And, in the Palestinian village of Bazaria, the Red Crescent attended to 54 injuries, including 9 due to rubber-coated bullets, and 43 with tear gas.
A photojournalist was wounded by rubber-coated bullets during clashes at the village’s entrance, which occurred due to the same settlers’ march.
And, in the village of Silat al-Daher, south of Jenin, a number of Palestinians suffered suffocation injuries during clashes with the Israeli occupation forces.
The Homish settlement, built on lands near the village of Burqa, was evacuated by occupation forces in 2005, though settlers have not ceased visiting the site under the pretext of establishing a “religious school”.
Last week saw an escalation of settlers’ attacks against a number of Palestinian villages across the Nablus governorate.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Territories recorded 427 attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank including East Jerusalem (or al-Quds as it is called in Arabic) between January to November 2021.
Non-governmental Israeli data indicate that there are approximately 666,000 settlers across 145 large settlements and 140 smaller outposts throughout the West Bank, including al-Quds.
