In its biweekly report on Protection of Civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories covering the period between 21 September and 4 October, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the Israeli occupation forces shot and killed nine Palestinians, including a boy – eight in the West Bank, including a woman, and one in the Gaza Strip.
On 26 September, three Palestinians were killed in Beit ‘Anan village, west of Jerusalem, and two others, including a 16-year-old child, in Burqin village, near Jenin in the north of the West Bank.
The incidents occurred in the context of Israeli search-and-arrest operations in the two villages. Israeli forces carried out 70 search-and-arrest operations and arrested around 80 Palestinians across the West Bank during the reporting period, said OCHA. The most affected governorate was Ramallah.
Also in Burqin on 30 September, a Palestinian was killed in another search-and-arrest operation.
On 24 September, a Palestinian protester was shot and killed during the ongoing protests in Beita village, near Nablus in the north of the West Bank, against the establishment of a settlement outpost.
On 30 September, Israeli forces shot and killed a Palestinian woman, aged 30, alleging that she had tried to stab Israeli police officers, at one of the gates leading to the Al Aqsa Mosque compound in the old city of Jerusalem; no Israeli injury was reported.
One Palestinian in Gaza was shot and killed by Israeli forces on 30 September in the Deir al Balah area, in the central Gaza Strip, while reportedly hunting birds near the Israeli fence around Gaza.
Overall, Israeli forces injured 328 Palestinians across the West Bank. Of them, 217 were hit during protests against settlement activities in the Nablus governorate, near Beita (117), Beit Dajan (73) and Deir al Hatab (27). Another 59 Palestinians, as well as two Israeli soldiers, were injured when Israeli settlers accompanied by Israeli forces attempted to reach Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus, during which Palestinians threw stones and homemade explosives at them, and Israeli forces shot back teargas canisters and rubber bullets.
In addition, 29 Palestinians, including a young child, were injured by Israeli forces or settlers in al-Mafghara village near Hebron in the south of the West Bank.
On 28 September, Israeli settlers injured nine Palestinians in this Palestinian community, claimed by Israel as a ‘firing zone’. One of those injured, a three-year-old boy, was hit by a stone in his head while in his bed, and was taken to an Israeli hospital. The remaining 20 injured Palestinians were treated for inhaling tear gas. Israeli settlers also killed five sheep and damaged 10 homes, 14 vehicles and several solar panels and water tanks.
Israeli settlers physically assaulted and injured eight other Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, and settlers damaged or stole the harvest from over 180 olive trees. These included four farmers injured while working their land near Al-Seifer village near Hebron, two shepherds near the community of Arab al Rashayida near Bethlehem, and another farmer in Ein Yabrud, near (Ramallah, and an activist in Susiya, near Hebron.
According to eyewitnesses or landowners, settlers vandalized around 160 olive trees in Al-Mafghara and Burin, near Nablus, and stole the olives from another 26 trees in Salfit. A number of attacks by settlers in the H2 area of Hebron were recorded, including breaking into a number of houses and stealing agricultural tools, surveillance cameras and water pumps, in addition to stealing olives.
Source: Palestinian News & Info Agency