Report on Israel’s Crimes in the West Bank in July 2024

During the reporting period, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) and Israeli settlers continue their violence against Palestinians and their properties in the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, amounting to crimes and other violations of international law. These crimes have included willful killings, destruction of public and private property, arrests, threats, among others.

In this report, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) highlights a number of monitored and documented crimes and violations committed by IOF and Israeli settlers against the Palestinians:

Killings and violation of the right to life and bodily integrity:

The IOF and settlers’ attacks during the reporting period in the West Bank have resulted in the killing of 41 Palestinians, amongst them a customs police officer who was on duty, and 19 civilians, including 7 children and 2 women, while the rest were members of the Palestinian armed groups. In addition, A detainee from ‘Aqaba village in northwestern Tubas died in Israeli prisons.  

So far in 2024, IOF attacks have killed 287 Palestinians, including a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip, 60 children, and 8 women. Furthermore, the number of Palestinian detainees who died in Israeli prisons, as officially announced, has risen to 14, including 8 from the Gaza Strip.

According to our field documentation, Israel has employed different methods and weaponry, either by shooting in protests or confrontations, military raids and assaults, drone strikes, or by carrying out extrajudicial killings by Israeli special units.

On 01 July 2024, 2 Palestinian civilians were killed during IOF raid on Tulkarm refugee camp and identified: Mohammad ‘Ali Sarhan (15) and Sanaa Khaled ‘Ali Al-Damri (47), while 4 others were injured.

On 02 July 2024, in a new crime of extrajudicial killings, an Israeli drone targeted and killed four members of the Palestinian armed groups in the central Nur Shams refugee camp, east of Tulkarm city. They were identified as Yazeed Sa’ed ‘Adel Shafe’a (22), Nemer Anwar Ahmed Hamarsha (25), Mohamed Yasser Raja Shehadeh (20), and Mohamed Hassan Ghanam Kanooh (22).

On 05 July 2024, IOF killed 8 Palestinians, including a civilian; after IOF besieged a house where a member of the Palestinian armed groups holed up in Sa’ada Forest, west of Jenin.

On 06 July 2024, IOF opened fire at 4 Palestinians who were inside a vehicle in the village of Beit Ur al-Tahta, northwest of Ramallah, killing Ahmad Muhammad Abd al-Hafiz Suleiman (24), a civilian, and injuring three others.

On 09 July 2024, Ghassan Hussein Ghareeb Zahran (15), was killed by IOF while he was with three of his friends in northern Deir Abu Mash’al village, northwest of Ramallah, which is an agricultural land adjacent to the bypass Route 465 used by settlers.

On 11 July 2024, ‘Ali Hassan ‘Ali Rabay’a (14) was killed during IOF’s incursion into the town of Meithalun in Jenin, as 5 children were injured.

On 16 July 2024, Ahmad Ramzi ‘Abed Sultan (20), from the Gaza Strip but currently living in Al-Bireh in Ramallah, was killed by IOF while he was in front of the house, without posing any danger to the soldiers’ lives.

On 20 July 2024, IOF killed Ibrahim Hamza Ibrahim Za’aqeeq (20) during stone-throwing clashes which accompanied IOF’s incursion into the town of Beit Ummar, northern Hebron.

On 23 July 2024, 7 Palestinians, including 4 civilians, were killed by IOF in four separate crimes in the West Bank. Five of them, including a mother and her daughter, and three members of the Palestinian armed groups, were killed after an Israeli drone fired a missile at them during IOF’s incursion into Tulkarm refugee camp. IOF then detained the body of the mother and the three members. The following day, a member of the Palestinian armed groups succumbed to his injuries as it turned out that he was the son of the woman who was killed along with her daughter in that strike. 

Also, IOF killed two Palestinians during their raid of Al-Shuyukh and Sa’r villages in Hebron and were identified as Murad Mohammad Nemer Halayqa (21) and Jehad Mohammad Hussein Al-Shalaldeh (39).

On 24 July 2024, IOF killed a customs police officer namely ‘Abdul-Nasser Mohannad Mohammad Sarhan (23) from Balata refugee camp in eastern Tubas after unjustifiably opening fire at him following Israeli special units’ infiltration near the customs police headquarters. Two other officers were injured.

On 25 July 2024, the detainee Mustafa Muhammad Abu ‘Errah (63), from the village of Aqaba, northwest of Tubas Governorate, died in the Israeli Soroka Medical Center, after his health deteriorated in Ramon Prison, becoming a new victim of the medical neglect policy in the Israeli prisons.

On 27 July 2024, an Israeli drone targeted a group of citizens with missiles in the middle of a residential compound in Balata refugee camp, east of Nablus, killing Luay Muhammad Mustafa Mishah (17), and injuring 15 civilians, including five children, as two of the injuries were deemed critical.

On 30 July 2024, Ramadan Hussein Mohammad Sadiq (47) was killed by IOF in the city of Nablus during a sudden raid on Jabal al-Tur, Ras al-Ain neighborhood, and the old city of Nablus.

Moreover, during the reporting period, 77 Palestinians were injured, including 21 children and 2 women. Among those injured, 7 are in critical condition.

Since the beginning of 2024, IOF attacks injured 791 Palestinians, including (168) children, (10) women, a paramedic and a journalist.

Raids and arrests

The IOF have conducted 1140 raids into Palestinian cities, refugee camps, and villages across the West Bank, including occupied Jerusalem, storming into several houses, going through their residents’ belongings, while damaging some, and abusing and subjecting their residents to ill-treatment. During these raids, the IOF have arrested 621 Palestinians, including 19 children, 6 women, and a journalist, according to PCHR’s researchers and the Palestinian Prisoners Club’s monitoring.

During the raids, IOF blew up a Palestinian vehicle in Jenin refugee camp and smashed 3 vehicles in Silwad in Ramallah. In addition, IOF confiscated a whole blacksmithing kit, an agricultural tractor, 6 trucks, 5 private vehicles, 7 backhoe loaders, a bulldozer, and 3 concrete pumps.

IOF also confiscated large quantities of chemical fertilizers in most parts of the West Bank, estimated at hundreds of thousands of shekels, and seized hundreds of thousands of shekels in cash and post-dated checks from homes and exchange companies in the West Bank.

Demolitions and land-razing

During the reporting period, the IOF and Israeli settlers demolished 357 facilities, including 45 houses; 33 of which were demolished under the pretext of construction without building permits, 9 were self-demolished by the owners in occupied East Jerusalem, and 4 were demolished as part of collective punishment policy, and 70 commercial facilities, including a wedding hall, 4 tourist villas, a gas station, and Khallet Amira Mixed Elementary School, where 70 students study in Hebron. Also, IOF partially destroyed 97 houses, including 59 houses during IOF ground and air assaults on Tulkarm and Nur Shams refugee camps in eastern Tulkarm. 

IOF have also extensively destroyed infrastructure, including water pipes, telephone and electricity lines during their incursions into the cities and refugee camps of the West Bank, particularly in Nur Shams refugee camp.

Land confiscations and settlement expansion

During the reporting period, the IOF and Israeli settlers continued their settlement expansion policy materialized in confiscating and razing Palestinian lands to establish settlement outposts and expand settlements. 

On 01 July 2024, IOF issued a decision to seize 13.43 dunums for the benefit of settlement expansion dubbed under “military purposes” in the village of Yasuf, east of Salfit.

On 02 July 2024, settlers set up many caravans and barracks in Khallet al-Liyah area in the village of Teqou, west of Bethlehem, in preparation for the establishment of a new settlement outpost.

On 03 July 2024, IOF confiscated 12,715 dunums of land from the town of Aqraba, southeast of Nablus, and Beit Ur al-Tahta in Ramallah for the benefit of settlement expansion and under the pretext of being state land.

On 05 July 2024, settlers established a settlement outpost near the village of Al-Auja in Jericho Governorate, close to the Ras al-Ain Bedouin Community, while another group of settlers southwest of Al-Auja village paved a settlement road towards the Ras al-Auja community.

On 08 July 2024, IOF issued a military order to confiscate 65 dunums of land from the villages of Beita and Qabalan near the Jabal Sabih area in the town of Beita, on which Evyatar settlement outpost was established, for the purpose of settlement projects under the pretext of being state lands.

On 09 July 2024, the Israeli authorities issued a decision to confiscate a dunum and 700 square meters of Palestinian-owned lands in the village of Deir Istiya, northwest of Salfit, for the purpose of settlement expansion.

On 10 July 2024, IOF delivered a military order to confiscate 1.7 dunums of Palestinian-owned land in the Bab al-Khadmish area in the village of Deir Istiya, with the aim of building a water tank for the Nofim settlement.

On 11 July 2024, IOF bulldozed 20 dunums and uprooted 150 olive seedlings belonging to Palestinians in the village of Haris in the Salfit Governorate.

IOF also bulldozed an agricultural road in the northern Jordan Valley for the benefit of settlement expansion.

On 14 July 2024, settlers in the Al-Rakeez area, east of Yatta in Hebron, set up 3 caravans on Palestinian-owned lands to expand the Avigayil settlement outpost.

On 16 July 2024, IOF issued a military order to confiscate 441 dunums of Palestinian-owned lands belonging to the villages of Shabtin, Deir Ammar and Deir Qadis, for the benefit of settlement expansion in the proximity of the Nili and Na’ale settlements.

On 17 July 2024, settlers in the village of Deir Dibwan in the Ramallah Governorate set up several wooden caravans and tents in preparation for establishing a new settlement outpost.

On 19 July 2024, settlers set up caravans, tents and pens on Palestinian-owned lands in Kafr ad-Dik in Salfit, for the benefit of expanding the Peduel settlement.

Settler violence

This month, Israeli settlers conducted 34 attacks against Palestinian villages and cities across the West Bank and occupied Jerusalem, mainly in the vicinity of Nablus governorate, road intersections, Za’tara, and near “Aliyah” settlement. In these attacks, settlers’ fire wounded a Palestinian. They also burned two houses, 4 commercial facilities, an agricultural barrack, a farm, an excavator, and a private vehicle. They also smashed windows of 13 vehicles, including a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance, and assaulted 9 Palestinians, including a child and a woman, using sticks, sharp objects, and stones. They attacked 3 homes, smashed their windows, and stole a digger in eastern Beit Dajan village in east of Nablus as the digger was reclaiming a land there. They also stole a cow and 150 sheep in the village of Deir Nidham in Ramallah governorate.

During the reporting period, settlers uprooted 374 olive trees and burned hundreds of dunums of Palestinian-owned lands in the West Bank.

IOF attacks in Jerusalem

IOF’s violations and Judaization attempts continued in occupied Jerusalem by approving the building of hundreds of new settlement units and entrenching their house demolition policy against Palestinians under various pretexts. Also, IOF continued to impose restrictions on Palestinian worshipers’ access to Al-Aqsa Mosque, especially on Fridays, in terms of determining ages, imposing restrictions and subjecting them to strict searches.

In addition to the destruction of homes and facilities as documented above, PCHR also documented the following:

On 03 July 2024, the Israeli municipal court issued a decision to demolish the headquarters of the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan, south of the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem, under the pretext of unlicensed construction, and to impose a fine of 20,000 shekels on its director, Jawad Siam, if he does not self-implement the decision within a year from the date of issuing the decision.

On 16 July 2024, settlers in the Batn al-Hawa area in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem seized a house belonging to Jawad Abu Nab, after removing the security bars of its windows and doors and preventing its residents from returning to it.

Restriction on freedom of movement and checkpoints

The IOF have established more military checkpoints in the West Bank and tightened restrictions on freedom of movement between the cities and villages, rendering them isolated and entrenching the geographical fragmentation. During the reporting period, the IOF established 387 temporary checkpoints along the streets and between the villages. They also erected tens of permanent checkpoints aiming to restrict Palestinians’ freedom of movement by searching and arresting them. During the reporting period, IOF arrested 24 Palestinians, including a child, in addition to setting up a metal detector gate in the Qabr Hilweh area between the town of Beit Sahour and the village of Deir Salah in the Bethlehem Governorate

Palestinians are subjected to inhuman and degrading treatment at checkpoints, hindering their movement and endangering their lives based on mere fallacious suspicions that have led to their killing or arrest allegedly for being “wanted”. These checkpoints have also brought unbearable suffering to Palestinian women, particularly pregnant women, after their passage through these checkpoints is obstructed. The latest victim of these checkpoint was Mohammad Murad Mohammad Shehadeh Jaradat (14), from Hebron, who was killed by IOF on 30 July 2024 at Etzion checkpoint, west of Bethlehem governorate, under the pretext of attempting to carry out a stabbing attack.