Summary of the Israeli Colonial Violations in the West Bank, April 2021
Maher Abed
This report briefly summarizes the Israeli occupation violations of human rights against the Palestinian lands and people during April 2021. The report relies on information from the daily reports of the Palestinian Monitoring Group of the PLO’s Negotiations Affairs Circle, Monitoring Israeli Colonization Activists in the Palestinian Territories (POICA), We Watch Israeli Violations (wewiv) body, Isreal and Palestinian human rights organizations, and live field following up.
During this month, the frequency of attacks by the occupation forces and its settlers against the city of Jerusalem and its Palestinian citizens increased. These attacks aimed at displacing the Palestinians and separating the Palestinians of Jerusalem from those in the West Bank and the occupied territories in 1948. The Israeli institutions approved building 2540 new settlement units in the Holy City. We review the details of the violations below.
Table: The Israeli occupation and settlements and violations during April 2020
| The Violation | Figure |
| Martyrs | 2 martyrs |
| Wounded | 221 wounded |
| Detainees | 351 detainees |
| Retention | 26 people |
| Displacement from the Al-Aqsa Mosque | 11 people |
| Storming into Palestinian residential areas | 255 cases |
| Abrupt Military Checkpoints | 263 checkpoints |
| House demolitions | 4 houses |
| Demolishing agricultural, industrial and commercial facilities | 5 establishments |
| Shooting the Palestinian citizens | 213 cases |
| Destruction and confiscation of property | 35 cases |
| Assault on the holy places | 24 cases |
| Terror of settlers | 67 cases |
| Cutting, burning and destroying trees | 420 trees |
| Levelling citizens’ lands | 57 dunums |
| Settlement activities | 14 activities |
| New Settlement unit | 2563 |
| Land confiscation | 160 dunums |
| New Settlements roads | One road of 1 Kilometre in Jerusalem |
Martyrs and Injured:
On 4/5/2021, while erecting a sudden checkpoint near the entrance to Bir Nabala, the Israeli forces fired at a Palestinian citizen’s car as it was passing through the checkpoint. Citizen Osama Muhammad Sidqi Mansour, 42 years old, was killed, and his wife Sumaya Ezzat Mansour, 35 years old, was injured. On 4/7/2021, a settler ran his car over the 73-year-old woman, Shafiqa Muhammad Salman Abu Aqil, near the western entrance to the town of Al-Samo and killed her.
The Israeli forces injured about 221 Palestinian citizens during this month. Eight of them are from the Gaza Strip and the rest in the West Bank, including five children, two women, an older person, a citizen with disabilities.
Arrest, detention, storming of residential areas, and deportation of citizens from Jerusalem:
During this month, the Israeli occupation arrested 351 citizens: 343 in the West Bank and eight citizens in Gaza, including 19 children, a woman, two university students, a paramedic, a journalist, and a doctor. The distribution of detainees according to the governorate is as follows:124 Jerusalem, 43 Ramallah, 25 Jenin, 13 Tubas, 7 Tulkarm, 11 Qalqilya, 18 Nablus, 6 Salfit, 5 Jericho, 44 Bethlehem, 47 Hebron, 1 Al Wusta, and 7 Khan Yunis.
The Israeli forces also detained 26 citizens while storming Palestinian villages and cities at the occupation checkpoints in the West Bank. In addition, during this month, the occupation forces deported 11 citizens of Jerusalem from Al-Aqsa Mosque for different periods.
This month witnessed 255 incursions by the occupation army into Palestinian residential communities, including 251 in the West Bank and 4 in the Gaza Strip. The following is the distribution of these incursions by governorates: 25 Jerusalem, 29 Ramallah, 45 Jenin, 6 Tubas, 18 Tulkarm, 12 Qalqilya, 36 Nablus, 9 Salfit, 10 Jericho, 30 Bethlehem, 31 Hebron, 1 Gaza, 1 Central, 2 Rafah.
Erecting military checkpoints and shooting at Palestinian citizens:
During the month, the occupation army set up 263 sudden checkpoints to disrupt the movement of citizens throughout the West Bank. These checkpoints were distributed over the governorates: 13 Jerusalem, 39 Ramallah, 4 Jenin, 28 Qalqilya, 17 Nablus, 44 Salfit, 36 Jericho, 61 Bethlehem, 21 Hebron.
The Israeli occupation army opened fire on Palestinian civilians in 213 cases, including 131 cases in the West Bank and the rest is in the Gaza Strip. The shooting cases included: 112 through military checkpoints, 19 during incursions, 49 from military sites, 33 by boats. In addition, the occupation bombed 19 locations in the Gaza Strip.
Home and infrastructure demolition and property destruction:
During this month, the occupation demolished 4 Palestinian residential buildings. The demolitions were distributed as follows: two houses in Jerusalem, a house in Bethlehem and a house in the Hebron governorate.
The occupation forces also demolished 5 Palestinian facilities, including barracks, agricultural rooms. The demolitions were distributed as follows: 4 in Jerusalem, 1 in Bethlehem. Israel also issued 63 demolition notices to Palestinian facilities and stop work on a 3-km-long agricultural road in the northern Jordan Valley.
The West Bank witnessed in 10 cases the destruction of home furniture, damage to citizens’ cars, uprooting of olive trees, and demolition of barracks. In 15 cases, citizens’ cars, recording cameras, personal property, and equipment were confiscated.
Violation of sanctities:
The West Bank witnessed 24 cases of aggression by the occupation army and its settlers against Islamic sanctities, including storming Al-Aqsa Mosque; establishing Jewish rituals there; assaulting the mosque’s guards; disabling the mosque’s loudspeakers; and preventing the entry of hundreds of breakfast meals that are distributed to fasting people in the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Terror of the occupation army and settlers:
During this month, the Israeli settlers carried out 67 assaults against the Palestinian citizens, including running over citizens, throwing stones at their cars and homes, cutting down their trees, burning their agricultural lands, storming towns, and physically assaulting citizens.
Settlement Activities:
On April 2, a group of settlers, protected by the Israeli occupation forces in the Al-Khimar area in the village of Battir in Bethlehem, razed and expanded an agricultural road of 100 meters and 6 meters wide in the land of Omar Al-Qaisi for settlement purposes.
On April 4, a group of settlers started building a new settlement outpost on the lands of the village of Beit Dajan in Nablus, 1 km west of the Hamra settlement.
On April 5, the occupation forces installed two caravans on citizens’ lands in the Al-Dhahr area of Asira al-Qibliya village in Nablus, located adjacent to the Yitzhar settlement.
On April 7, the planning committee of the Israeli municipality in Jerusalem approved the construction of 2,540 housing units, including 540 housing units in the Har Homa settlement and 2,000 housing units in the Givat Hamatos settlement, which were located south of Jerusalem within the occupied territories in 1967.
On April 8, the occupation forces issued a military order to confiscate 13 dunums of citizens’ lands in the town of Hizma in Jerusalem to build a new road, 1 km long and 16 meters wide.
On April 8, the occupation forces, near the Ibrahimi Mosque in the old city of Hebron, poured concrete on the floor of the old bus stop.
On April 17, the occupation authorities in the city of Jerusalem started transforming the vineyard of the Mufti in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood of the city into a Biblical garden.
On April 19, a group of settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, north of the settlement outpost established on the lands of citizens in the Khallet Hamad area in the northern Jordan Valley, razed and built roads in the lands of citizens in the Al-Hama area.
On April 19, the occupation forces started building 23 new settlement units in the Maskiot settlement built on Palestinian lands in the northern Jordan Valley.
On April 19, A group of settlers, under the protection of the occupation forces, carried out razing works to build a settlement road in the lands of citizens belonging to the town of Bruqin and the villages of Sarta and Haris in Salfit.
On April 20, the occupation forces razed an area of land near the entrance to Al Walaja village – Bethlehem. They uprooted a number of trees owned by Muhammad Abdul Jalil Al-Hajjaleh. They also razed an area of agricultural land adjacent to Al-Ruwaisat Mountain.
On April 22, the occupation authorities approved a decision to confiscate 147 dunums of agricultural lands that belong to the citizens of Nahalin and the village of Husan in Bethlehem for settlement purposes.
On April 26, in the villages of Ni’lin and Deir Qadis – Ramallah, the occupation forces razed the lands of citizens planted with olive trees in preparation for the establishment of a new settlement outpost.
On April 26, on the northern side of the town of Bruqin-Salfit, the occupation forces began razing the lands of citizens located near the Brukhin settlement to expand the settlement.
Settler Terrorist Attacks:
On April 3, a group of settlers from Esh Kodesh settlement, which is built on the lands of Jalud village in Nablus, entered the agricultural lands of the citizens located to the east of the town and attacked several citizens while they were cultivating their land.
On April 5, a group of settlers re-erected two tents in the wilderness of Tekoa in Bethlehem (after removing them by the owners of the land) to seize the land and establish a settlement outpost.
On April 6, while storming the archaeological area in the town of Sebastia in Nablus, a group of settlers attacked Muhammad Azem while he was responding to their attempt to kidnap a child.
On April 6, a group of settlers from the Al-Dabawi outpost on Al-Shuhada Street in the Old City of Hebron beat the citizen: Tahrir Al-Sharbati, and her two-year-old daughter.
On April 4, a settler ran over an elderly female citizen with his vehicle near the western entrance to the town of As-Samu’, which led to her death.
On April 7, while storming the town of Kifl Haris in Nablus, a group of settlers stole two bicycles from the house of Oqab Abu Yaqoub, broke a gravestone, and caused material damage to other houses.
On April 4, a group of settlers entered the lands of the citizens of the village of Ein Yabroud in Ramallah and fired randomly at the citizens.
On April 13, a group of settlers entered the outskirts of Hawara town in Nablus and beat Saddam Omar while he was in front of his house.
On April 15, a group of settlers from Beit El settlement threw stones at vehicles of citizens passing on the main road, smashing the windows of several vehicles.
On April 15, a group of settlers stormed Khirbet Ibziq in the northern Jordan Valley and tried to storm a school, which sparked a state of terror among the students.
On April 18, a group of settlers from Yitzhar settlement entered the outskirts of Asira al-Qibliya village in Nablus and burned the electricity distribution cabinet of the water tank feeding the village.
On April 19, a group of settlers attacked a number of citizens near Bab Al-Khalil in the Old City of Jerusalem, injuring a number of citizens.
On April 19, a group of settlers in Jerusalem threatened to kill the child Ahmed Abu Khdeir, a resident of Shuafat neighbourhood in Jerusalem (after being interrogated and released for slapping a settler on the light rail).
On April 21, a group of settlers in the Silwan neighbourhood in Jerusalem attacked many houses and tried to close the road to the citizens.
On April 21, a group of settlers from the Ma’on settlement, built east of Yatta town in Hebron, attacked citizen Musleh Makhamra while grazing his sheep in the pastoral lands in the area.
On April 22, groups of settlers near Bab Al-Khalil and in the Bab Al-Amud area and the neighbourhoods of Sheikh Jarrah, Al-Tur, Wadi Al-Joz and Al-Masara in Jerusalem opened fire indiscriminately and attacked the citizens, which resulted in the injury of a citizen woman in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, and the windows of a number of citizens’ vehicles were smashed in the neighbourhoods Al-Masrara, Sheikh Jarrah and Bab Al-Amoud area. The occupation forces also intervened and fired metal bullets, sound and gas bombs at the citizens to secure protection for the settlers. As a result, 105 civilians were injured, 22 of whom were admitted to hospitals, and the rest of the injuries were treated in the field.
On April 24, a group of settlers from the Hafat Ma’on settlement entered the lands of the citizens in the village of Al-Tawani and the Al-Mafqarah area, located east of Yatta town in Hebron, and threw stones at the citizens and their homes, injuring a number of them.
On April 24, groups of settlers in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Jerusalem attacked citizens’ homes and vehicles with stones and Molotov cocktails.
On April 25, a settler from the Eleazar settlement, built on Al-Khader town in Bethlehem, severely beat Ahmed Salah on the citizen Ahmed Salah while ploughing his land, causing him bruises.
On April 26, a settler near the French Hill in Jerusalem tried to kidnap child Laith Alyan, 12 years old, from Al-Isawiya village, where many citizens managed to thwart his attempt.
On April 27, a group of settlers near the settlement of Ramot, which is built east of the village of Beit Iksa in Jerusalem, burned several vehicles of Palestinian citizens.
On April 28, a group of settlers in the Wadi Hilweh area in the Silwan neighbourhood of Jerusalem severely beat a citizen with disabilities. He was injured and bruised.
On April 29, a group of settlers from Movodotan settlement severely beat a citizen while he was grazing sheep near his house in the village of Amreha, southwest of Yabad in Jenin, which caused him injury and bruises.
On April 30, a group of settlers attacked citizens’ homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood in Jerusalem, where the neighbourhood’s people confronted them.
