DUMA: As violence surges in the occupied West Bank, Palestinians and human rights groups decry an increasingly blurry distinction between the Israeli army and settlers, emboldened by the current pro-settlement government.
In the West Bank, the "line that never really existed between the army and the settlers" has now "been completely erased", said Joe Carmel, advocacy coordinator for Breaking the Silence, an Israeli anti-occupation NGO made up of former soldiers.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) recorded 1,096 settler attacks on Palestinians in the territory between October 7 and March 31. That represents an average of six attacks per day, up from two a day in 2022. Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, which also records settler violence, said 2023 was already a peak year.
With each attack, a similar story -- armed settlers, sometimes wearing the army's khaki fatigues, attack Palestinian villagers, burn their houses and cars, and steal their livestock, sometimes under the passive gaze of soldiers.
On April 13, Palestinians in the northern West Bank village of Duma watched in terror as hundreds of settlers attacked their village and stabbed a villager after an Israeli teenager who often visited a nearby settlement outpost was found dead.
Human Rights Watch investigated five attacks perpetrated by settlers in five different Palestinian villages between October and November 2023, and concluded in April that "the Israeli military either took part in or did not protect Palestinians from violent settler attacks in the West Bank".
"Evidence shows that armed settlers, with the active participation of army units, blocked roads and attacked Palestinian communities on several occasions: they have detained, assaulted and tortured inhabitants, and evicted them from their houses and land," HRW concluded. — AFP
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