Six Palestinian families in the village of Aqqaba, east of Tubas in the northeastern West Bank, dismantled their homes and tents on Saturday in preparation for leaving the area, following a sharp escalation in attacks by illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers.
Mutaz Bisharat, the official responsible for the Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission in the Tubas district, said the families began taking down their structures early Saturday morning after weeks of intensifying assaults that made it impossible for them to remain safely on their land.
He added that the families had endured repeated harassment, threats, and physical attacks, culminating in their decision to evacuate.
The move comes one day after twelve Palestinians were injured in Aqqaba when Israeli occupation forces assaulted residents during a colonizer attack on the village.
Armed colonizers, operating under full military protection, stormed the area on Friday, beating residents and opening live fire, while Israeli soldiers assaulted Palestinians attempting to defend themselves and their property.
The Wall & Colonization Resistance Commission has confirmed that Israeli forces and colonizers carried out a total of 1,872 attacks across the occupied West Bank during the month of January.
The Commission documented 1,404 attacks carried out directly by Israeli forces and 468 by colonizers. The highest number of assaults occurred in Hebron, with 415 incidents, followed by Ramallah and al‑Bireh with 374, Nablus with 328, and occupied Jerusalem with 201.
According to the Commission, these attacks took multiple forms, including physical assaults on residents, uprooting of trees, burning agricultural fields, preventing farmers from accessing their land, seizing property, and demolishing homes and agricultural structures.
The pattern of violence reflects a systematic effort to pressure Palestinian communities, particularly those in rural and vulnerable areas, to abandon their land.
The forced departure of families from Aqqaba underscores the growing impact of coordinated military and colonizer violence across the occupied West Bank, where entire communities face increasing threats of displacement amid expanding colonial outposts and escalating attacks.
Also Saturday, Israeli colonizers killed a Palestinian young man, Amir Mohammad Shanaran, 28, and critically injured his brother, Khaled Muhammad Shanaran,33, during an attack in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank.
On Friday, Israeli colonizers carried out a series of assaults across the occupied West Bank, targeting children, shepherds, farmers, solidarity activists, and journalists in multiple communities from the northern Jordan Valley to the central and southern regions, while Israeli occupation forces provided protection and directly participated in several of the attacks.
On Monday, two Palestinian civilians were killed and five others, including a child, were wounded by live ammunition on Monday during an attack by armed Israeli colonizers on the village of Qaryut, south of Nablus, in the northern West Bank.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health confirmed the deaths of two brothers: Muhammad Moammar (52), who was shot in the head, and Fahim Moammar (47), who died after being shot in the pelvis.
Since the beginning of the Israeli military aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, occupation forces and settlers have killed 1122 Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank, including 232 children and 24 women.
In the Jenin governorate, 310 Palestinians have been killed, while 213 were killed in Tulkarem, 144 in Nablus, 110 in Hebron, 98 in Tubas, 82 in Ramallah, 62 in Jerusalem, 44 in Qalqilia, 36 in Bethlehem, 15 in Jericho and the Jordan Valley, and 8 in Salfit, according to the Shireen Observatory.
All of Israel’s colonies in the occupied West Bank, including those in and around occupied East Jerusalem, are illegal under International Law, the Fourth Geneva Convention in addition to various United Nations and Security Council resolutions. They also constitute war crimes under International Law.
Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits collective punishment and acts of terror against civilian populations.
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states: “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” It also prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory”.
Articles 53 and 147, prohibit the destruction of civilian property and classify pillage as a war crime.
