Settlers attacks, in recent times, have escalated in various governorates of the West Bank, and have spread to all bypass roads under protection from the Israeli forces.

During the past two days, hundreds of settlers embarked on attacking citizens and their vehicles in three areas of Hebron, the southern West Bank, and two sites in Ramallah, and blocking the road around the Za'tara checkpoint, the northern West Bank. In addition, they organized a march and attacks in the town of Huwara, near Nablus, northern West Bank.

"Dozens of settlers organized a march, in the town, and chanted hostile phrases under the protection of dozens of soldiers," Nasser Al-Hawari, Mayor of Huwara said to Safa.

Settlers attacked homes, citizens, and properties and stopped traffic before they have been confronted by the youth in the town.

Hawari added that organizing a march in the main road of the town is not the first of its kind, with the presence of large forces from the Israeli army.

Feeling of safety

“The settlers persistence in attacking everything Palestinian is the result of their feeling of safety from any threat from the region and the occupied territories in 1948,” Salah Abu Hamaida, a writer, said.

Hamida added, in an interview with Safa agency, that the Palestinian authority’s commitment to agreements with Israel caused a sense of security for the settlers, in addition to the normalization agreements with the Arab countries.

“The Israeli army deployed in the West Bank is to protect the settlers, and that what is happening is the division of roles between the settlers and the army, while the Palestinians live under a racist entity based on transmigration and settlement creation,” the writer affirmed.

He believes that the settlers are the vanguard and spearhead of the Zionist project on the Palestinian land, and they enjoy the patronage of the official Israeli establishment. They also enjoy tax exemptions and encouragement and incentives in housing, agriculture, industry, and others.

The settlers assaults on the rights of Palestinians are part of their job and it is a result of the racist ideological mobilization that is being indoctrinated to them.

Regarding to the reactions to the settlers barbarism, the writer believes that matters are likely to explode in the public, with poor predictions with precision, pointing out that the state of calmness encourages settlers to escalate attacks.

Tactical Plan

Imad Abu Shamsiyya, a co-founder of the Human Rights Defenders Group, believes that the settlers attacks on Hebron, the holy areas, the northern West Bank, and roads in Ramallah and Nablus is to impose a new status.

"The settler' creation of online pages to buy homes in central Hebron and the escalation of settlement outposts in the Jordan Valley are steps to prevent the establishment of an independent Palestinian state,” Abu Shamsiyeh said to Safa.

“The settlers movements and the daily mobilization and queries on the roads of the West Bank is a strategic, tactical Israeli scheme aim to controll more lands by force,” the writer asserts.

What is happening is like a beginning of an uprising against the Palestinian presence in the West Bank, and that what has happened on the bypass roads under the protection of the Israeli police and army was clear with the aim of targeting the Palestinian citizen and their presence.

In his speech, the human rights defender touches on the division of the West Bank into cantons, and the separation of villages and camps from the cities, which is an endeavor that the occupation succeeded in imposing by dividing the geographical extension of the land in the West Bank.

In addition, he believes that the new de-facto policy resulted from the absence of the Palestinian unity and the absence of a national resistance program to stop settlement expansion, and the Palestinian National Authority failure to deliver the settlement file to the international courts.

Source : Safa