Illegal settler violence in West Bank provoked biggest 'forcible transfer' since last October: Rights group

By Nur Asena Erturk

Recent illegal settler violence in the West Bank provoked the "largest forcible transfer" since October 2023, a major rights group said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) calls on the international community to intervene and protect Palestinian communities after illegal settler violence in the northeast of the West Bank caused the largest wave of forcible transfers of Palestinian communities since the weeks following 7 October,” the statement read.

Three communities of 119 Palestinians were forced out of their homes in recent days due to the attacks, and two other communities were totally emptied, the NRC said, explaining the size of the forced displacement.

Allegra Pacheco, chief of party of the NRC-led West Bank Protection Consortium, said the group calls on the international community, including the US and the EU, “to intervene with the Israeli authorities and protect these vulnerable communities.”

Israeli authorities, “as the occupying power,” are directly responsible “for the actions of violent settlers” that are also committed under Israeli military protection, according to Pacheco.

“Palestinians are being forced to leave their land in what clearly constitutes a grave breach of international humanitarian law,” it added.

“NRC urges the international community to push Israel to prohibit Israeli settlers from entering Palestinian residential, agricultural and grazing areas. Military orders must close down all settler outposts, illegal under Israeli law, from where violence is planned and perpetrated,” the group stressed.

Tensions have been running high across the West Bank since Israel launched a deadly military offensive against the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 40,170 people since Oct. 7, 2023, following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas.

At least 635 Palestinians have since been killed and nearly 5,400 others injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Health Ministry.

In a landmark advisory opinion on July 19, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land "illegal" and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.