A Palestinian activist lifts a national flag and flashes the victory sign as Israeli armored vehicles including a bulldozer drive on a street during a raid in Tulkarem on September 3, 2024. (AFP)

Geneva, September 4 (RHC)-- An independent UN expert has warned that Israel's "genocidal violence" in Gaza risks spreading to the occupied West Bank and other parts of Palestine.  In a statement released on Tuesday, Francesca Albanese, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights situation in the Palestinian territories, said Israel's recent intensification of military assaults in the West Bank marked "a dangerous escalation."

"Israel's genocidal violence risks leaking out of Gaza and into the occupied Palestinian territory as a whole," she said.  "The writing is on the wall, and we cannot continue to ignore it.  There is mounting evidence that no Palestinian is safe under Israel's unfettered control." 

Systematic aerial and ground attacks on Jenin, Nablus, Tulkarem and Tubas governorates, particularly targeting refugee camps, have intensified in the past few months.

On August 28, Israeli forces launched a full-scale military onslaught against these areas that have already killed dozens of Palestinians.   The increasing violence in the West Bank coincides with unprecedented levels of displacement, depopulation and land confiscation carried out by Israeli soldiers in collaboration with settlers in the occupied region.

“Apartheid Israel is targeting Gaza and the West Bank simultaneously, as part of an overall process of elimination, replacement and territorial expansion” Albanese said.

This continues even after the International Court of Justice concluded that this occupation is unlawful.  “The long-standing impunity granted to Israel is enabling the de-Palestinisation of the occupied territory, leaving Palestinians at the mercy of the forces pursuing their elimination as a national group,” warned the expert.

“The international community, made of both states and non-state actors, including companies and financial institutions, must do everything it can to immediately end the risk of genocide against the Palestinian people under Israel’s occupation, ensure accountability and ultimately end Israel’s colonization of Palestinian territory." 

Experts believe continuous genocidal incitements by top Israeli officials, soldiers, armed settlers and others, prove the intent to destroy the Palestinian people under occupation.  Increasingly loud calls by Israeli officials for turning the towns in the West Bank and refugee camps into a “mini-Gaza” are translating into military action causing widespread destruction to the West Bank’s urban areas.

Israel has now designated the occupied West Bank as “the second most critical front, immediately after Gaza.”  The latest wave of aggression is the worst since the Second Intifada in the occupied West Bank more than two decades ago.

According to Palestinian Health officials, Israeli raids across the West Bank have so far left at least 30 Palestinians dead and more than one-hundred-twenty injured.

The head of UN agency for Palestinian refugees says Jenin has been “ravaged by violence (and) destruction” for a seventh day due to the Israeli military’s operation in the Palestinian territory.  “Over more than 150 hours, people have been undergoing an Israeli military operation, armed clashes & the use of explosives by Palestinian armed groups. Residents have limited access to food, water & medicine,” UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini wrote on X.

[ Source: Al Jazeera, varioius news agencies ]