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The UN special coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process says at least 100 Palestinians, including children, have been killed by the Israeli regime’s forces in the occupied West Bank since the beginning of the year.
Tor Wennesland made the remark in a statement on Saturday as he sounded the alarm about the “deteriorating security situation” following heightened tensions between Israeli forces and Palestinians in the West Bank, including al-Quds.
“Since the beginning of the year, at least 100 Palestinians have been killed, including children, amid a significant increase in Israeli military operations in the occupied West Bank, including in Area A,” Wennesland said.
Warning that the mounting violence in the occupied West Bank was “fueling a climate of fear, hatred, and anger,” the UN official said it is “crucial to reduce tensions immediately to open the space for crucial initiatives aimed at establishing a viable political horizon.”
Wennesland called on both sides to restore calm and avoid further escalation. “The fragility of the situation underscores the urgency of changing the dynamics on the ground,” he said.
The mounting violence in WB is fueling a climate of fear, hatred & anger. Crucial to reduce tensions to open the space for crucial initiatives aimed at establishing a viable political horizon. Fragility of the situation underscores urgency of changing dynamics on the ground. pic.twitter.com/VmuY42egOb
— Tor Wennesland (@TWennesland) October 8, 2022
Earlier in the day, Israeli forces killed two Palestinian teenagers and injured nearly a dozen others during a raid on the northern occupied West Bank, bringing to four the number of people shot dead in 24 hours.
According to the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, undercover forces raided the Jenin refugee camp on Saturday morning, before Israeli military vehicles rolled into the camp from multiple directions, sparking confrontations with local residents.
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.
Israeli settlers break into al-Aqsa again
In another development on Sunday, scores of Israeli settlers intruded into the al-Aqsa Mosque compound in the occupied Old City of al-Quds in the latest act of provocation against the sacred Palestinian site.
Wafa reported that the extremist settlers, escorted by the Israeli military forces, broke into the compound through the Moroccan Gate and performed rituals and Talmudic prayers.
More than 4,400 Israeli settlers made their way into the holy site and prayed there last month.
Such mass settler break-ins almost always take place at the behest of Tel Aviv-backed temple groups and under the auspices of the Israeli police in al-Quds.
The al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which sits just above the Western Wall plaza, houses both the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque.
The Israeli regime enables the Jewish visitation of al-Aqsa despite the fact that an agreement signed between Israel and the Jordanian government in the wake of Israel’s occupation of East al-Quds in 1967 prohibits non-Muslim worship at the compound.
