'Only Getting Worse': Global Alarm Mounts Over Israel's Assault on Occupied West Bank

United Nations Human Rights Office spokesperson Ravina Shamdasani on Wednesday issued a dire warning about violence being carried out in the occupied West Bank by both Israeli armed forces and Israeli settlers, which she said is "only getting worse."

Noting that eight Palestinians, including a boy, have been killed in the West Bank in just the last week, Shamdasani decried actions taken by the Israeli government to tighten control of the occupied territory and expand illegal settlements.

"Settlers and Israeli security forces, often acting together, have attacked local communities, assaulting families, destroying and confiscating property, and burning mosques," said Shamdasani. "Movement restrictions are now tighter, blocking Palestinians from reaching essential services."

The UN Human Rights spokesperson also expressed alarm at "open calls by Israeli leaders for revenge and collective punishment against Palestinian communities, accompanied by threats to turn the West Bank into another Gaza."

Shamdasani encouraged the international community to "act urgently and in unison to halt the continuing killing and dispossession of the Palestinian people, and to bring an end to the Israeli occupation."

In a Tuesday statement, the Carter Center similarly highlighted rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, pointing to a recent report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimating an average of six settler attacks per day against Palestinians.

"Settler attacks are now the leading cause of Palestinian injuries in the West Bank," the center explained, "and more than 3,200 Palestinians have been displaced by settler attacks and home demolitions this year—double the daily rate of the previous three years."

The center likewise urged the international community to "take urgent diplomatic, legal, and economic action to pressure Israel to fulfill its obligations under international law to curb settler violence, ensure accountability, protect civilians, and end policies that enable settlement expansion and annexation."

According to the anti-occupation Israeli group Peace Now, officials on the Higher Planning Council on Wednesday were scheduled to discuss authorizing more than 1,200 housing units in four West Bank settlements, which would bring the cumulative number of housing units approved this year to over 8,000.

This comes on top of the nearly 28,000 housing units approved by the council last year, which Peace Now described as "an unprecedented record and the highest annual figure since the establishment of the settlement enterprise in the West Bank."

Peace Now added that the Israeli government has significantly sped up the process for approving new settlement construction in recent years after scrapping earlier rules requiring the Israeli defense minister to sign off on new building projects in the occupied territories.

"In recent weeks, we have witnessed a change where the Higher Planning Council meets every week and approves several hundred housing units in each meeting," explained Peace Now. "In this way, the government seeks to normalize planning in settlements and attract less public and international attention and criticism."