GENEVA: The UN warned Tuesday that mass displacement in the West Bank had hit levels not seen since the start of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory nearly 60 years ago.
The United Nations said an Israeli military operation launched in the north of the occupied territory in January had displaced tens of thousands of people, raising concerns about possible “ethnic cleansing.”
The military operation “has been the longest since ... the second Intifada,” in the early 2000s, said Juliette Touma, spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“It is impacting several refugee camps in the area, and it is causing the largest population displacement of the Palestinians in the West Bank since 1967,” she told reporters in Geneva via video from Jordan, referring to the six-day Arab-Israeli war that led to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank.
The UN rights office meanwhile warned that mass forced displacement by an occupation force could amount to “ethnic cleansing.”
Since Israel’s military launched its operation “Iron Wall” in the north of the West Bank in January, rights office spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan said that “about 30,000 Palestinians remain forcibly displaced.”
Israeli security forces had during the same period issued demolition orders for about 1,400 homes in the northern West Bank, he said, describing the figures as “alarming.”
He pointed out that Israeli demolitions had displaced 2,907 Palestinians across the West Bank since October 2023.
Another 2,400 Palestinians — nearly half of them children — had been displaced as a result of Israeli settler actions, he added, lamenting that the combined result was the “emptying large parts of the West Bank of Palestinians.”
“Permanently displacing the civilian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer,” Kheetan said, stressing that depending on the circumstances this could be “tantamount to ethnic cleansing” and could “amount to a crime against humanity.”
Kheetan said 757 attacks by Israeli settlers had been recorded in the West Bank during the first half of the year, a 13 percent increase on the same period in 2024.
The attacks injured 96 Palestinians in the occupied territory in June alone, he told reporters, stressing that this was the highest monthly injury toll of Palestinians from settler attacks, “in over two decades.”
Violence in the West Bank has surged since the October 2023 attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas triggered war in the Gaza Strip.
Since then, at least 964 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the UN.
During that same period, 53 Israelis have been killed in reported attacks by Palestinians or in armed clashes — 35 of them in the West Bank and 18 in Israel.
West Bank seeing largest displacement since 1967: UN
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West Bank seeing largest displacement since 1967: UN
- Military operation “has been the longest since ... the second Intifada,” in the early 2000s, said spokeswoman for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees
Israeli FM urges Jews to move to Israel a week after Sydney attack
- “Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!” Saar said
JERUSALEM: Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar called on Sunday for Jews in Western countries to move to Israel to escape rising antisemitism, one week after 15 were shot dead at a Jewish event in Sydney.
“Jews have the right to live in safety everywhere. But we see and fully understand what is happening, and we have a certain historical experience. Today, Jews are being hunted across the world,” Saar said at a public candle lighting marking the last day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah.
“Today I call on Jews in England, Jews in France, Jews in Australia, Jews in Canada, Jews in Belgium: come to the Land of Israel! Come home!” Saar said at the ceremony, held with leaders of Jewish communities and organizations worldwide.
Since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israeli leaders have repeatedly denounced a surge in antisemitism in Western countries and accused their governments of failing to curb it.
Australian authorities have said the December 14 attack on a Hanukkah event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach was inspired by the ideology of the Islamic State jihadist group.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged Western governments to better protect their Jewish citizens.
“I demand that Western governments do what is necessary to fight antisemitism and provide the required safety and security for Jewish communities worldwide,” Netanyahu said in a video address.
In October, Saar accused British authorities of failing to take action to curb a “toxic wave of antisemitism” following an attack outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, in which two people were killed and four wounded.
According to Israel’s 1950 “Law of Return,” any Jewish person in the world is entitled to settle in Israel (a process known in Hebrew as aliyah, or “ascent“) and acquire Israeli citizenship. The law also applies to individuals who have at least one Jewish grandparent.zz
