The Media Unit, in cooperation with the Area C National Coordination Office at the Prime Minister’s Office, organized a field trip for foreign journalists to the villages of Burin and Qaryut in the southern periphery of the Nablus Governorate, located to the north of the West Bank. This trip comes as part of implementing the National Policy Agenda (2017-2022), which puts citizens first and provides concerted support to the so-called “Area C” and marginalized areas. Moreover, it aims at exposing the ongoing violence of Israeli settlers, under the protection of Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF), before the international community and human rights institutions, and at demonstrating the efforts of the Palestinian Government to support the steadfastness of its citizens in these areas.

The field trip included visits to the areas affected by settlement expansion, and to a number of Palestinian families who regularly suffer from the ongoing attacks and violence of Israeli settler militias. *Leaflets and fact sheets that contain figures, numbers, and information about settler attacks in the West Bank, particularly in Nablus, supported these visits, which aimed at witnessing facts on the ground.

“Illegal Israeli settlement activity is part of an ongoing, systematic and planned Israeli operation to seize Palestinian lands, destroy agricultural areas, and establish new settlement units, street networks, and military bases serving roughly 652,052 Israeli settlers in 299 illegal settlements,” Ahmad Shami, spokesperson to the Office of the Prime Minister, stated during the trip.

“The year of 2018 witnessed a dramatic increase in settlers’ attacks, which became more organized in a method, number, and form. This was represented through creating organizations and groups that carry out attacks and ignite violence against the defenseless Palestinian citizens such as 'Pay the Price’ settlers’ gang, which executed 862 attacks during the past year,” Shami added.

Shami also pointed out that the attacks carried out by the settlers are concentrated on the Governorates of Jerusalem, Nablus, and Hebron, which have witnessed more than 73% of the total settler attacks in the region. Therefore, he called upon the international community to intervene immediately in order to pressure Israel, the Occupying Power, to respect the international law and the UN Security Council resolution No. 2334. Further, Shami demanded an urgent action to curb the settlers’ attacks and violence through deploying an international protection force to protect the defenseless Palestinian citizens and to appeal to the International Criminal Court to expedite opening necessary investigations to achieve justice to the Palestinian citizens.

Fact Sheet 2018 *

*All statistics are documented in the 2018 annual report summary, issued by the Colonization and Resistance Commission.