UN OCHA Protection of Civilians weekly report-Aug. 4-10. 2015

by Middle East and Europe | published on Aug 13, 2015

The United Nationsl Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs publishes a weekly Protection of Civilians report. The current issue covers the period between 4 – 10 August 2015. To view the complete version of the report, including a series of charts with the main indicators, please click here.

Highlights:

On 8 August, a 32-year-old man died of wounds sustained the previous week, after suspected Israeli settlers threw firebombs into his home, while the family was asleep in Duma village (Nablus). The man’s infant son was killed in the attack and his wife and other son remain in serious condition in an Israeli hospital. In another incident on 9 August, Israeli forces shot and killed a 20-year-old Palestinian man after he stabbed and injured an Israeli settler at a gas station on Road 443 in the Ramallah governorate.
During the week, 21 Palestinians, including four children, were injured across the West Bank, during clashes between Israeli forces and Palestinian stone-throwers. The majority of injuries took place during protests against Israeli- imposed restrictions on Palestinian entry into Al Aqsa Mosque Compound in East Jerusalem which, in several instances, coincided with the entry of settlers and other Israeli groups into the compound; search and arrest operations; and checkpoint-related incidents.
Three Israeli soldiers were injured as a result of being struck by a car driven by a Palestinian man near Sinjil junction (Ramallah); the Palestinian man was shot and injured on the spot. Following the incident, Israeli forces carried out a search and arrest operation in Biddu (Jerusalem), where the man is from, triggering clashes with residents, during which three Palestinians were shot with rubber-bullets and one Israeli soldier was injured by stones. Additionally, Israeli media reported four Palestinian attacks, involving stone-throwing at passing Israeli-plated vehicles and resulting in the injury of one Israeli settler near Beit ‘Einun (Hebron) and damage to four vehicles.
In the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces fired a missile targeting a military site west of Al Bureij Refugee Camp in Deir al Balah, injuring four members of Palestinians armed groups, as a response to Palestinian rocket fire (see below). On at least seven other occasions, Israeli forces opened fire towards civilians in the Access Restricted Areas (ARA) on land and at sea, resulting in no casualties; on one occasion, Israeli forces entered and leveled land inside Gaza.
Members of armed groups in Gaza fired at least five rockets towards Israel; one landed in an open area and the others dropped short; no injuries or damage was reported.
Four Palestinians were killed and another 40 injured when unexploded ordnance (UXO) exploded in a house in Rafah. Since the cease-fire of August 2014, fifteen Palestinians, including one child, were killed in UXO incidents, and another 163, including 22 children, were injured.
Israeli forces arrested 73 Palestinians across the oPt, the vast majority in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip two fishermen were arrested at sea after Israeli forces ordered them to take off their clothes and swim towards the naval boats. Another six were arrested near the fence surrounding Gaza, after crossing into Israel without authorization.
Seven Israeli settler attacks resulting in damage to Palestinian property were recorded. Five of these incidents took place in the Nablus governorate, including the physical assault of a 21-year-old Palestinian man near Burin, reportedly by settlers from Barcha; the setting of fire and vandalizing of at least 80 Palestinian-owned trees in Majdal Bani Fadil and Burin villages; and land-leveling of two plots of cultivated land near the settlement of Eli in Qaryut village. The two other incidents involved opening fire at a Palestinian-plated vehicle near Beit ‘Einun (Hebron) and the throwing of a Molotov cocktail at a Palestinian house in Dar Faza’a (Ramallah). Additionally, not included in the count, on two consecutive days during the week, sewage leaked from the Israeli settlement of Betar Illit onto land belonging to Nahhalin village (Bethlehem), causing damage to crops.
In Area C of the West Bank, the Israeli authorities demolished a total of 32 Palestinian-owned structures, for lack of Israeli-issued building permits. Of these, eight structures were demolished in the herding communities of Hammamat al Maleh al Meiteh and Yarza in the northern Jordan Valley, as well as eleven in the Hebron governorate, three in the Bethlehem governorate and two in the Jenin governorate. The demolitions included seven residential structures, displacing 36 people. Of the total, four structures were donor-funded.
In the Silwan area of East Jerusalem, three Palestinian refugee households (comprising seven people) are at-risk of imminent forced eviction and displacement after the Israeli authorities delivered eviction orders against three residential structures. This follows a protracted legal battle where an Israeli settlement group successfully pursued pre-1967 property claims’ Palestinian refugee residents of East Jerusalem are unable to utilize Israeli courts in a reciprocal manner. The area affected by the property case covers over one acre, placing hundreds of Palestinians at potential risk of displacement.
The Rafah crossing was closed in both directions by the Egyptian authorities during the week. So far in 2015, 7,504 Palestinians have exited Gaza via Rafah compared with 25,665 Palestinians in the equivalent period in 2014.