Unprecedented violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank is increasingly undermining the safety and wellbeing of Palestinian children and young people, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
"What is unfolding is not only an escalation in violence against Palestinian children; it is the steady dismantling of the conditions children need to survive and grow," UNICEF spokesman James Elder said following a visit to the West Bank.
Elder reported on a woman whose arms were broken when she tried to shield her 4-month-old baby from an attacking settler. Her 8-year-old son Ezzaldin was struck so severely with a wooden club that he was taken to the hospital with head injuries, according to the UNICEF spokesman.
Homes and houses, as well as schools and the water supply are being destroyed in the settler attacks, Elders said, adding that more and more barriers are being erected, increasingly cutting off children from schools and clinics.
"Schools, which should be places of safety and stability, are increasingly becoming sites of fear," Elder said. "Attacks on schools and the denial of children’s access to education are grave violations against children with long-term consequences for their safety, wellbeing, and future."
Since the beginning of the year, 2,500 Palestinians have been displaced, including 1,100 minors, Elder said.
In March, around 170 people were injured by settlers, the highest number in a single month since the violence began in 2006, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
In addition, 347 minors are being held in Israeli custody, the highest number in eight years, it said.
Israel is massively expanding settlement construction in the West Bank. According to the UN and the International Court of Justice, the move violates international law, under which an occupying power is not permitted to settle its own population in occupied territory.
