2022 is expected to be the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since the UN began keeping count of fatalities in 2005, according to the UN Mideast envoy.
Tor Wennesland warned the UN Security Council that “growing pessimism, rage, and tension have once again burst into a fatal cycle of violence that is more difficult to stop,” calling for quick action to defuse “an explosive situation.”
The West Bank’s downward spiral and the current unstable scenario are the result of years of violence, according to the special coordinator for the Middle East peace process, who gave a sombre assessment of the situation.
According to the UN representative, 311 Palestinians were hurt during demonstrations, riots, search-and-arrest operations, attacks, and suspected attacks against Israelis in the preceding month, and 32 Palestinians, including six children, were killed by Israeli security forces.
According to him, Palestinians engaged in shooting and ramming attacks, riots, the hurling of stones and Molotov cocktails, and other occurrences during that time, resulting in the deaths of two Israeli soldiers and the injury of 25 Israeli citizens.
Wennesland claimed that “a rise in lethal violence” occurred in this month, putting the year 2022 on course to be the bloodiest in the West Bank.
This year, conflict between Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank and east Jerusalem has claimed the lives of over 125 Palestinians.
Since a string of Palestinian attacks that resulted in 19 deaths in Israel in the spring, fighting has increased. The majority of Palestinians slain, according to the Israeli army, were militants. But there have also been deaths among adolescents throwing stones in protest of the intrusions and unrelated individuals.
Ongoing Israeli arrest raids in the West Bank pose a serious challenge to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.
To maintain his position of authority, especially in the face of his Islamic extremist opponents, Abbas depends on security cooperation with Israel. The Palestinians, who resent Israel’s ongoing occupation, which has lasted for 56 years, find this cooperation to be extremely unpopular.
In the West Bank, which Israel annexed after winning the 1967 Middle East conflict, more than 130 settlements have been established, many of which resemble small cities and have apartment buildings, commercial centres, and industrial areas.
The West Bank is intended to make up the majority of the Palestinians’ eventual state. The majority of nations consider the settlements to be illegal under international law.
In an emotional speech to the Security Council on Friday (local time), the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, Riyad Mansour, declared: “Our people, our children, and our youth are being slain, and they will not die in vain.
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s UN ambassador, responded by saying that Mansour’s address and Abbas’s message to world leaders last month were identical: “It is a message of fake victimhood, tales of tyranny, and fictions of aggression.
He informed the council that Israel was experiencing a wave of terrorism. “More than 4000 Palestinian terror assaults against Israelis have been carried out since the beginning of this year alone.”
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