RAMALLAH, Monday, March 6, 2023 (WAFA) – Israeli settlers this evening stormed the outskirts of at-Tira neighborhood in Ramallah and performed religious rituals in the area, according to security sources.
Sources told WAFA that settlers, backed by military forces, stormed the outskirts of at-Tira neighborhood and performed Talmudic rituals there, provoking Palestinians and leading to confrontations between them and the military forces who provided protection to settlers.
Israeli settlers’ vandalism in the occupied West Bank is routine and is done with full backing by the Israeli authorities, said the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem.
“Settler violence and vandalism take place with full backing by the Israeli authorities. Sometimes soldiers take part in the assault; at other times, they stand idly by. The police make no substantial effort to investigate the incidents, nor takes measures to prevent them or stop them in real-time,” it said.
Israel benefits from the repercussions, as settler violence has gradually dispossessed Palestinians of more and more areas in the West Bank, paving the way for a state takeover of land and resources, said B’Tselem.
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 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”.
