OCHA: 50 Palestinians injured, 13 others displaced in one week

A UN report said that around 50 Palestinians were injured in the West Bank and Gaza, 1,000 olive trees were damaged, and 30 people were displaced in East Jerusalem as a result of demolitions during the past week.

In its weekly report on Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that 50 Palestinians were injured in clashes with Israeli occupation forces, the majority of whom were minors.

The report (from 28 May to 3 June 2013) documented 18 Israeli attacks against Palestinian property and one that led to a Palestinian injury (in “Gilo” settlement in Jerusalem). “This represents a 50 per cent increase compared to the weekly average of such incidents so far in 2013. No settlers were injured this week.”

The report said that Israeli settlers set fire to or cut down at least 1,220 olive trees and slashed the tires, sprayed graffiti on or set fire to at least 16 cars. Anti-Christian and “price-tag” graffiti was sprayed by Israeli settlers on a church in the Old City of Jerusalem and on several houses and cars in Beitillu village in Ramallah.

The Israelis demolished 4 Palestinian-owned structures in East Jerusalem and Area C on the grounds that they lacked Israeli issued building permits. As a result 13 people, including five children, were displaced and the livelihoods of 34 other people were affected, the UN report documented during the past week.

The weekly report affirmed that a Palestinian farmer was shot and injured in Gaza Strip by Israeli occupation forces while he was approximately “300 meters from the fence between” Israel” and the Gaza Strip”.

Israeli occupation forces also conducted at least two land leveling operations a few hundred meters on the Gaza side of the fence on 29 May. These incidents took place in the context of access restrictions imposed by the Israeli occupation forces  in areas near the fence, the report said.

B.N