“Settlers and soldiers have displaced entire Palestinian communities, destroying every home, with the apparent backing of higher Israeli authorities.” –  Bill Van Esveld, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch

More than 871,000 registered refugees live in the West Bank, around a quarter of whom live in 19 refugee camps.  Whilst attention has been on the genocide taking place in Gaza, violence by the Israeli state and by ‘settlers’ has been increasing.

The West Bank and East Jerusalem has been under Israeli occupation since 7th June 1967. The space between the barrier and the green line is a closed military zone known as the Seam Zone, cutting off 9% of the West Bank and encompassing dozens of villages and tens of thousands of Palestinians.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has reported its concerns about the attacks in The West Bank and East Jerusalem on health care facilities.

Since October 7th 2023, 521 Palestinians have been killed in The West Bank and East Jerusalem, including 126 children. Over 5200 people, 800 of them children. This is putting health facilities under great pressure, however, they have also been under attack –  480 , as at 28th May 2024.

Movement has been severely restricted with checkpoints closed and detentions of health workers as well as the siege and closure of entire towns and communities.

Israel has also withheld tax revenues which the people of the West Bank have paid to the state. The economic consequences of this means that the health services are suffering with health workers receiving only half of their salary for nearly a year and 45% of essential medications being out of stock.  In most areas of the West Bank, primary care clinics and outpatient specialty clinics are now operating two days per week, and hospitals are operating at approximately 70% capacity.

Many patients in the West Bank are also being denied permission to travel to receive care.

WHO has called for the immediate and active protection of civilians and health care in the West Bank. International humanitarian law must be respected, which means the sanctity of health care must be observed at all times. 

Israel is an apartheid state where restrictions exist to how people may travel depending on the category of citizen they are put in. Settlers is the term used for Israeli citizens who are planted into private Palestinian lands, displacing those people, some of whom can trace their families back generations living in that area. These Israeli settlements are illegal under international law but are encouraged by Israel.

Amnesty International reports that between 12 and 16 April this year hundreds of Israeli settlers went on a deadly rampage launching violent raids on Palestinian villages in the West Bank including in al-Mughayyir, Duma, Deir Dibwan, Beitin and Aqraba. In these attacks, in which settlers set fire to homes, trees and vehicles, at least four Palestinians were killed by either settlers or Israeli forces, including 17-year-old boy Omar Hamed near Ramallah, and two men shot dead near Nablus– Abdulrahman Bani Fadel and Mohammed Bani Jami’.

Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International said:

“Establishing Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories flagrantly violates international law and constitutes a war crime. Violence is integral to the establishment and expansion of these settlements and to sustaining apartheid. It’s time for the world to recognize this and pressure Israeli authorities to abide by international law by immediately halting settlement expansion and removing all existing settlements.”

Human Right Watch reports that Following October 7, the Israeli military called up 5,500 settlers who are Israeli army reservists, including some with criminal records of violence against Palestinians, and assigned them to West Bank “regional defense” battalions. The authorities distributed 7,000 guns to battalion members and others, including “civilian security squads” established in settlements, according to Haaretz, and Israeli rights groups. Media reported that settlers left leaflets and sent threats on social media to Palestinians after October 7, such as warnings to “flee to Jordan” or be “exterminate[d],” and that “the day of revenge is coming.”

Fiona Grahame