Illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers escalated their attacks on Palestinian civilians, Monday, targeting homes and farmland in Khirbet Masoud (southwest of Jenin) and the village of Jurish (south of Nablus), in the occupied West Bank’s northern part.
In Khirbet Masoud, occupation forces and colonizers stormed residential areas, vandalized olive trees, and released livestock into cultivated lands and between homes.
Also, the colonizers also brought their livestock on graze on the Palestinian lands in Khirbet Masoud.
A day earlier, colonizers invaded a home, smashed its windows and doors, and raised the Israeli flag on its roof.
Khirbet Masoud is part of the Zabbouba Village Council and comprises three residential clusters: ‘Iraq al-Duwwar, Khirbet Faris, and Khirbet al-Qosour, with a population of approximately 350 residents.
The area lies adjacent to an illegal colonial outpost built atop the mountain, where Israeli authorities continue to bulldoze land and seize dozens of agricultural dunums stretching from Qaffin to the hills of Ya’bad.
Meanwhile, in Jurish, colonizers infiltrated the northern part of the village at dawn, set fire to the parked vehicle of citizen Mohannad Salem Khaled, and scrawled racist slogans on the walls of his home.
These attacks reflect a deliberate strategy of colonial expansion and forced displacement, carried out under the protection of Israeli military forces and in violation of international law.
They form part of a broader campaign to terrorize Palestinian communities, destroy livelihoods, and erase indigenous presence from strategic areas across the occupied West Bank.
On Sunday, Israeli soldiers assaulted several Palestinians while they were harvesting olives in the town of Nahhalin, west of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. The incident occurred in the “Seder Ein Faris” area, where farmers had gathered to collect seasonal crops.
Furthermore, an illegal Israeli colonizer shot and killed a Palestinian young man on Monday, at the entrance to the city of Hebron, in the southern occupied West Bank.
WAFA correspondent reported that the young man, Ahmad Ribhi Al-Atrash, was killed before dawn Monday, after being shot in the head with live ammunition at the northern entrance to Hebron city.
On Saturday, illegal Israeli settlers shot three Palestinians with live ammunition in the Bethlehem governorate, while others attacked farmers in the Ramallah and Hebron governorates.
On Wednesday evening, illegal paramilitary Israeli colonizers stormed a Bedouin village in the al-Hathrawa area near Khan al-Ahmar, east of occupied Jerusalem in the West Bank, on Wednesday evening.
Also Wednesday, Israeli colonizers cut down dozens of olive trees belonging to citizens in the Nablus and Hebron governorates, in the northern and southern parts of the occupied West Bank.
In addition, Israeli paramilitary colonizers set fire to two civilian vehicles during an assault on the town of Surif, northwest of Hebron.
Since the beginning of the year, Israeli forces and colonizers have killed 230 Palestinian citizens in the occupied West Bank, including 42 children and 6 women.
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.
