Demolishing homes and burning lands The occupation and settlers carry out arrests and attacks in the West Bank

The Israeli occupation army carried out a series of raids in cities and towns in the occupied West Bank, accompanied by the injury of a child, arrests, the demolition of homes, and the destruction of property, while a group of Israeli settlers burned agricultural lands in the northern West Bank.

The Israeli News Agency (WAFA) reported that the Israeli occupation forces arrested at least 15 Palestinian citizens from the cities of the West Bank, since yesterday evening until this morning, including former prisoners and a woman from Hebron. The Prisoners Club and the Commission of Prisoners and Freed Prisoners Affairs said in a joint statement that the arrests were distributed among the governorates of Hebron, Nablus, Ramallah, Jenin, and Tulkarm.

The statement said that the number of arrests after October 7th amounted to more than 9,670, including those arrested from homes, through military checkpoints, those who were forced to surrender themselves under pressure, and those who were held hostage.

The city of Hebron, in the southern West Bank, also witnessed an attack by the Israeli occupation forces on the Shuyukh al-Arroub area, which resulted in a Palestinian boy being seriously injured. Medical sources at the hospital to which he was transferred confirmed that the boy (15 years old) was shot in the chest with live ammunition, and is in critical condition.

Demolition of houses and land leveling

In addition to arrests among the Palestinians of the West Bank, the occupation army is carrying out extensive acts of sabotage and destruction in citizens’ homes. Today, Monday, the occupation demolished 4 homes in the village of Al-Walaja, south of the occupied city of East Jerusalem, under the pretext of “building without a permit.”

The head of the Walaja town council, Khader Al-Araj, said in statements that the lands where the demolition took place in the town, which is affiliated with the Bethlehem governorate, "are administratively located within the borders of the nearby Jerusalem municipality," stressing that "Israel is working to oppress the residents with the aim of displacing them from their lands." He added: "On the other hand, there is a large settlement expansion at the expense of citizens' lands."

According to the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, Israel demolished 318 Palestinian facilities in the occupied West Bank during the first half of 2024. Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights organizations indicate that the Israeli occupation in Jerusalem grants building permits to settlements in the city, while tightening restrictions on granting building permits to Palestinians.

In turn, the Wafa Agency reported that the Israeli occupation forces bulldozed large areas of citizens' lands west of the Salfit Governorate, located north of Jerusalem, noting that the governorate has been subjected to extensive bulldozing operations for several months by the occupation forces, with the aim of extending water lines for the benefit of the settlements at the expense of citizens' lands.

Settlers burn agricultural lands

Meanwhile, a group of settlers attacked a gathering of Palestinian Bedouins near the town of Al-Lubban Al-Sharqiya, south of the city of Nablus, in the northern West Bank, on Monday, and burned dozens of dunams of Palestinian agricultural land.

In this context, the general supervisor of the Al-Baidar Organization for the Defense of Bedouin Rights, Hassan Malihat, indicated in a statement that “a group of extremist settlers set up tents and placed barbed wire on lands belonging to the village of Burqa, east of Ramallah, to build a new settlement outpost,” adding that “this outpost comes in the context of the plans of the extreme right-wing forces in the occupation government aimed at controlling more lands for the purposes of settlement expansion.”

According to Israeli estimates, more than 720,000 Israeli settlers live in settlement outposts in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, while the United Nations confirms that settlements in the occupied territories are illegal and has called for decades to stop them.

Settlement activity in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has witnessed a significant increase since the current right-wing government, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, came to power in December 2022, while the occupation has intensified these activities since the outbreak of its war on Gaza.