The Most Violent Year for the West Bank in a Decade

A recent report by the United Nations on the situation in Palestinian territories states that 2015 was the most violent year for the West Bank in the last decade. According to the Israeli newspaper Jerusalem Post, the 19-page report titled 'Fragmented Lives' was published on Monday, June 14, by David Carden, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian territories. The report depicts the 'devastating effects' of living under daily tensions and military laws on four million eight hundred thousand Palestinians. It attributes the 'increasing defenselessness of Palestinians' against Israeli militarism and 'violations of international law and human rights, and the hardships imposed on Palestinians' to the continuation of Israeli occupation, which recently entered its fiftieth year. The report states that recorded violent incidents in 2015 in the West Bank amounted to at least 305 confrontations. The previous year, 2014, saw at least 217 reported violent incidents. Street attacks by Palestinian youth against Israelis, using knives or vehicles, were ongoing during the last four months of 2015, and continue to some extent. In the last four months of 2015, Israel's response to Palestinians intensified, as 25 Israelis were killed by Palestinians during this period. According to the UN report, 146 of the fatalities in the West Bank in 2015 were Palestinians killed on the verge of street attacks against Israelis. Additionally, 94 other Palestinians were killed that year during protests or Israeli military incursions into Palestinian areas. The report emphasizes that the killing of Palestinians in the West Bank has been on an upward trend over the past decade. The UN report also notes that nearly 90,000 Palestinians displaced by the war in Gaza two summers ago remain homeless and are still refugees. The report mentions the assaults by Israeli settlers on Palestinian farmers, stating that the uprooting of Palestinian olive trees is aimed at driving them from their farms. The UN report was released amid ongoing Israeli responses to an armed attack by two Palestinian cousins against Israelis in a shopping and entertainment center last Wednesday night, with parts of the West Bank still under siege and hundreds of Palestinians arrested in recent days. Israel has recently accelerated the demolition of the homes of those involved in attacks against its citizens; the UN and some countries have called on Israel to exercise restraint in its response to the attack in Tel Aviv.