Over 260 attacks on Palestinians in West Bank in October, UN says

The UN’s human rights agency on Friday condemned what it said were increasing attacks by radical Israeli settlers on Palestinian facilities and homes in the occupied West Bank.

A spokesman in Geneva for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) spoke of a pattern of increasing violence against Palestinians. Several people had been injured in the attacks, including at a milk factory. More than 260 attacks were registered in October, more than in any single month since 2006.

Israeli authorities had intensified their activities, destroying houses, confiscating property and increasingly restricting the movement of Palestinians, while settlements were being expanded and thousands of Palestinians were being displaced by settlers and the military.

According to international jurisdiction, the West Bank, like the Gaza Strip, is part of the territories occupied by Israel. Israel regularly rejects accusations by the UN Human Rights Office and accuses it of being biased against Israel.

“Permanently displacing the Palestinian population within occupied territory amounts to unlawful transfer, which is a war crime. The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies also amounts to a war crime,” OHCHR said in a statement issued on Friday.

Since the devastating terrorist attacks from the Gaza Strip on Israel on October 7, 2023, 1,017 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in operations by Israeli security forces and attacks by settlers. A total of 59 Israelis were killed there in raids or fighting during the same period.