United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday settler attacks seek to drive Palestinian communities from occupied West Bank land, as U.N. figures showed 244 incidents in two weeks.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded those incidents across 113 communities in an Oct. 15 update covering Sept. 29 through Oct. 12. The average was about 17 incidents per day. OCHA counted cases involving casualties, property damage or both; reported property impacts ranged from homes and farmland to livestock, water infrastructure and other assets. An event could qualify based on damage even if no casualty was recorded. The count tracks incidents, while OCHA's separate casualty figures count people. EconoTimes previously covered OCHA's settler-attack tally.
Israeli forces or settlers killed five Palestinians and injured 246 during the same period, OCHA said. Three deaths occurred in settler attacks. The agency placed 181 injuries in the category “in the context of settler attacks.” Attacks on Oct. 5 and 6 displaced three Palestinian herding families. The families comprised 15 people, including nine children.
Guterres said Palestinians faced settler attacks daily and that journalists and diplomats were also being attacked. He said, “The clear goal is to drive communities off their land,” and called the situation “simply out of control.”
Reuters reported that masked settlers assaulted diplomats from France, Belgium and Poland, along with a French mayor, elsewhere in the West Bank on Saturday. That account concerned an event after OCHA's Oct. 12 reporting cutoff. Reuters also reported that Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine sustained injuries during olive-harvest coverage and received hospital treatment and surgery on a finger. EconoTimes previously reported on Levine's assault.
Guterres said he would travel to Egypt Friday. He called for a political path toward lasting peace, an end to the occupation and a two-state solution.
