Hamas calls on UN to take ‘effective and urgent’ action to stop Israeli aggression in occupied West Bank
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called on the United Nations to take “effective and urgent” action to stop the Israeli regime’s crimes and atrocities against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.
A resistance movement’s spokesman, Jihad Taha, made the plea in a press statement on Monday, saying the UN was required to take an effective and urgent action to stop the Zionist aggression against Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, and to halt the occupation’s siege and closure of the entrances to cities and towns. The spokesperson said the regime was imposing a policy of collective punishment on hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, in flagrant violation of the most basic standards of international law.
Appreciating the efforts of the UN envoy, Tor Wencesland, to stop the Israeli regime’s aggression against Palestinians, Taha said, “We call on him to condemn and criminalize these violations… and to hold the occupation leaders accountable for their continuous violations against our people, our land and our holy sites.”
Tensions have been running high across the occupied Palestinian territories over the past months.
In late September, Israeli right-wing groups called for the storming of al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of al-Quds so as to increase Jewish presence at the holy site as Jews celebrated Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.
The extremist right-wing groups have openly called for turning al-Aqsa into a Jewish worship area and tearing down the Islamic shrines in order to build a Jewish temple on the location.
Moreover, Israeli forces have recently been conducting overnight raids and killings in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.
At least 171 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied territories since the start of the year, including 51 in the besieged Gaza Strip during Israel’s three-day onslaught in August.
‘5,300 Palestinians detained since January’
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS) announced on Monday that the Tel Aviv regime had detained 5,300 Palestinians since the start of the year, including 111 women, 620 minors, and 1,610 without trial or charge.
The PPS said the highest number of detentions was recorded in the occupied al-Quds with 2,353 people, and the highest rate was in April with 1,228.
“The Israeli soldiers raid cities, towns and refugee camps to detain activists, many Palestinians were killed in the process by army bullets, making the number of field executions this year the highest compared to the past few years, not to mention imposing collective punishment on entire towns and refugee camps,” Palestine’s official Wafa news agency cited the PPS as saying.
The Palestinian Prisoner’s Society added that the occupation forces have intentionally caused heavy damage and material loss during the raids of the homes of the families of the detainees this year, which is considered higher than the previous years.
Pointing to administrative detentions, Wafa cited the PPS as saying that this year’s data showed the highest number of detentions was in August when 272 orders were issued against Palestinian activists, bringing the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention without charge or trial until the end of September to around 800.
