Illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers escalated their attacks in the northern Jordan Valley, at dawn Thursday, targeting Palestinian agricultural infrastructure and plowing privately owned farmland in a bid to impose de facto control over the eastern strip of Tubas Governorate, in the occupied West Bank’s northeastern part.
Mahdi Daraghma, head of the al-Maleh and Bedouin Communities Council, reported that colonizers invaded the ad-Deir area, stole iron fencing from a livestock enclosure.
Daraghma added that the colonizers punctured the tires of a water tanker belonging to Palestinian citizen Abd Rabbo Bani Odeh.
In a related incident, colonizers plowed dozens of dunams of Palestinian farmland in Khirbet Samra, including approximately 250 dunams of land officially registered under Palestinian ownership. The plowing followed the fencing off of hundreds of dunams in the same area days earlier.
Over the past several weeks, colonizers have fenced off thousands of dunams of agricultural and grazing land across the northern Jordan Valley, in what local officials describe as a systematic campaign to impose Israeli sovereignty over the region through land seizure and displacement.
In related news, Israeli colonizers invaded the Khalayel al-Louz area east of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, on Thursday, destroying a greenhouse and a water well belonging to Palestinian farmers.
At dawn Thursday, Israeli colonizers set fire to the Hajja Hamida Mosque, located between the towns of Deir Istiya and Kifl Haris, near Salfit. in the central part of the occupied West Bank.
On Wednesday, illegal Israeli colonizers carried out a number of attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, resulting in the injury of at least four citizens, including a woman in Bethlehem, Jericho, and Salfit. Occupation forces razed land and expropriated 38 dunams of land belonging to the town of Beit Ummar, north of Hebron in the southern West Bank.
It is worth mentioning that official Israeli police data reveals a staggering 73% drop in investigations into violent crimes committed by Israeli colonizers against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank over the past two years.
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.
