The United Nations stated it is working on plan meant for providing emergency aid to Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, victims of attacks carried out by extremist Israeli settlements; the aid includes compensation for bodily harm and property damage.Israeli daily, Haaretz, has reported that the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is seeking aid from international organizations to provide the compensations based on criteria it is currently working on.
The sought aid is will not only be financial, and would be based on estimates done by the UN regarding the amount of damage inflicted in each individual case.
Haaretz said that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank does not have the means to provide compensation for Palestinian victims of settler violence, and quoted an official stating that Israel is responsible for the settlers and their actions in the occupied territories.
The official told Haaretz that when the settlers for instance burn a mosque, there is no problem is raising money to repair it, but the real issue is raising money for individuals harmed by the settlers and their escalating attacks.
According to Haaretz, Palestinians who are hurt in Jewish nationalistic attacks in the occupied territories are not granted compensation from the state, as hate crimes law in Israel does not include those Palestinians.
Yet, if Palestinians legally enter Israel, after being granted permits, and are subject to Israeli violence, then they are entitled to compensation from the Israeli Tax Authority or the National Insurance Institute.
Haaretz further said that, in 1999, Israel formed a committee in charge of compensations for Palestinians hurt by Israel violence. Supreme Court Justice (then Attoreny General), Elyakim Rubinstein, recommended forming the committee.
The recommendations took effect 2000; they specifically state that compensation is paid for victims of violence not carried out by the Israeli army, and that the victims of this violence are not taking legal civil actions against the state, aka suing the state.
Furthermore, Haaretz said that another committee, known as the “Others Committee”, is in charge of compensating Palestinian victims of Israeli military violence, but the committee does not have a big budget, does not even have a website, and pays hundreds of thousands of Israeli Shekels each year.
It also said that the website of the Israeli Defense Ministry does not even have instructions on how to contact this committee, and added that this committee handed a few cases of settler violence that took place against the Palestinians in 2008 when the army evicted settlers from a Palestinian property in the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Israeli Television has reported that this committee recently paid a Palestinian the amount of NIS 140.000 following an injury he suffered when extremist settlers hurled a rock it him near the Yitzhar illegal settlement, in the northern West Bank district of Nablus.
Another Palestinian received NIS 27000 after being violently beaten and assaulted by Israeli settlers, and a third received NIS 28000 after the settlers torched his car, and a fourth was paid NIS 20000 when settlers destroyed his olive grove, Haaretz reported.
Extremist settler groups are responsible for hundreds of attacks against the Palestinians, their property and orchards, in addition to escalating attacks against Islamic and Christian holy sites and graveyards.
