UNRWA says October ‘on track to be the most violent month’ since it began tracking settler violence in 2013.
Israeli settlers have carried out more attacks against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, as the United Nations warned that this year’s olive harvest is on track to be the most violent in more than a decade.
The Palestinian official news agency Wafa reported several incidents of settler violence on Saturday, including in fields close to the towns of Beita and Huwara, near the northern West Bank city of Nablus, and in Sinjil, a town near Ramallah.
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Three Palestinian farmers also were wounded in al-Maniya, southeast of Bethlehem, after Israeli settlers opened fire on them as they were harvesting their olives.
Palestinians in the West Bank have experienced a surge in settler and military attacks since Israel launched its Gaza war in 2023. But this year’s olive harvest season, which began last month, has brought an even greater increase in violent incidents.
The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Saturday that October “is on track to be the most violent month since UNRWA began tracking settler violence in 2013”.
“The annual olive harvest is the primary livelihood for tens of thousands of Palestinians, with olive trees deeply rooted in Palestinian heritage and identity,” Roland Friedrich, director of UNRWA affairs in the West Bank, said in a statement shared on social media.
“Attacks on the olive harvest threaten the very way of life for many Palestinians and further deepen the coercive environment in the occupied West Bank,” Friedrich said. “Families should be allowed unhindered access to their lands to harvest their olives in safe conditions.”
According to the latest UN figures, released on Thursday, at least 126 Israeli settler attacks have been recorded in 70 Palestinian towns and villages so far this olive harvest season.
More than 4,000 olive trees and saplings also have been vandalised, the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) found.
Meanwhile, OCHA said that the expansion of illegal Israeli settlement outposts in the West Bank has “further undermined Palestinian farmers’ ability to reach their lands” to harvest their olive trees.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has been rapidly expanding settlement activity in the shadow of the Gaza war, drawing condemnation and warnings from the UN and international human rights groups.
Far-right Israeli politicians, including members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, have also been pushing for Israel to formally annex the West Bank.
In July, the UN human rights office warned that escalating settler violence in the West Bank is being carried out “with the acquiescence, support, and in some cases participation, of Israeli security forces”.
Settler and military attacks “are part of a broader and coordinated strategy of the State of Israel to expand and consolidate annexation of the occupied West Bank, while reinforcing its system of discrimination, oppression and control over Palestinians there”, it said.
