Tensions in the West Bank have reached a boiling point as Israeli settlers have continued to occupy Palestinian land, in some cases defying Israeli authorities by refusing to relinquish land on which Palestinians rely for a living.
On May 2021, 34 Palestinians were killed, which is the highest monthly figure in 10 years, with Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, the Shin Bet, reporting almost 600 violent incidents, as the Israeli military covered the occupied territory with numerous more brigades.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), in its latest humanitarian report on the first two weeks of June alone, stated that perpetrators, known, or believed to be Israeli settlers, injured 11 Palestinians including four children, damaged vehicles, and demolished local water systems and other Palestinian-owned property.
As settler ferocity and Palestinian protests have exploded, one of the focal points of the clashes has been the town of Beita in the northern West Bank, near Nablus.
Four Palestinians have recently been shot dead by Israeli forces as they griped alongside the theft of more than five acres of their land, which was previously used for the cultivation of olives, for the construction of the illegal Israeli settlement of Evyatar.
The military’s civil administration unit ruled that about 50 prefabricated settler homes built on Mount Sabih were unlawfully built on private Palestinian land and ordered the settlers to evacuate, arguing that their activities were destabilizing security in the area.
