Israeli Forces Killed About 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza, UN Human Rights Office Says

UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories said in a report that violence, killings and destruction against Palestinians continue in the Gaza Strip while the rate of forcible displacement of Palestinians in the West Bank has reached levels not seen in decades.

“Serious escalation: The Palestinian presidency on Thursday condemned the Israeli Security Cabinet's decision to establish 34 new settlements in the West Bank, describing the move as a serious escalation and a flagrant violation of international law and UN legitimacy decisions”

Anadolu Ajansi

On Tuesday May 19, the head of the UN Human Rights Office in the occupied Palestinian territories warned that acts of violence, killings and destruction against Palestinians continue in Gaza, while the rate of forcible displacement in the West Bank has reached levels unprecedented for decades.

Anadolu Ajansi

The report said Israeli forces since the start of the war and thereafter unleashed devastating violence and property seizures in Gaza and the West Bank, amounting to war crimes and possible crimes against humanity.

It estimated that Israeli forces have killed about 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since the war began, and noted that the Israeli blockade on Gaza led to famine that had been forecast previously and later confirmed, noting that hundreds died of hunger, including children.

The UN official said displaced Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have barely any chance of returning home, raising fears of ethnic cleansing and forced population transfers.

Demócrata reported that several UN rapporteurs expressed their "alarm" at the increase in "terror" exercised by Israeli settlers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including East Jerusalem, warning that this poses an "existential risk to Palestinian communities and their presence on the territory".

In a joint statement, the experts denounced that "the endless attacks by the colonial settlement movement, carried out with the complicity of the State of Israel" have become a daily terror for Palestinians.

Courrier international

RFI described how, in the north of the occupied territory, funerals went wrong on Friday, May 8, when Palestinians had to exhume a dead man to bury him farther away at the request of threatening Israeli settlers.

RFI said that on Friday, May 8, while the funeral of an 80-year-old man was taking place near Jenin, Israeli settlers burst in, threatened the procession, and ordered the grieving men to exhume the dead.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was cited by RFI as mentioning a "horrific" violence that spares "neither the dead nor the living."

The Occupation Plans to Establish 34 New Settlement Outposts in the West Bank, according to Al-Waqa'i News, which said the Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission in the Palestinian Authority stated that Israeli occupation authorities plan to establish 34 new settlement outposts in the West Bank.

“Useful links Sections Services Sectors Newsletters en UN rapporteurs denounce the growing "terror" of Israeli settlers in occupied territories and warn of an existential risk to Palestinian communities”

Demócrata

Muayed Shaban, head of the Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission, said in a press release on Thursday that the decision represented a "highly dangerous leap" and a "blatant attempt to impose irreversible faits accomplis on the ground".

Anadolu Ajansı reported that the Palestinian presidency condemned the Israeli Security Cabinet's decision to establish 34 new settlements in the West Bank, describing the move as a serious escalation and a flagrant violation of international law and UN legitimacy decisions.

In parallel, Sud Ouest reported that the European Union launched an aid program to address violence by Israeli settlers, with the EU office saying the project would document attacks and support communities victimized by such attacks.

The EU source said the project, "led by civil society organizations and supported by the EU," would provide a protective presence as well as protective equipment, such as fences, to Palestinian villages facing attacks by settlers.