Acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank reached a record high in 2023, with at least ten people losing their lives in such violent attacks, the Israeli non-governmental organization Yesh Din announced today.

“Settler violence is the policy of the Israeli government,” the NGO said in a statement, noting that the number of incidents, their severity, “the number of Israelis involved and the number” of acts of violence peaked in 2023. , with many incidents occurring especially after October 7.

“The last two months” since that date “have been particularly violent,” she said Yesh Dinwho recorded 242 acts of violence.

Dozens of Palestinian homes and vehicles were damaged by Israeli settlers in 2023, according to the organization, which has been recording such violent incidents since 2006.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). recorded 1,225 settler attacks against Palestinians in 2023.

Among these attacks, Yesh Din reports two large-scale violent incidents, perpetrated by “a large number of Israeli settlers”: the first in Hawara in February and the second in Turmus Hagia in June, two Palestinian towns located between Nablus and of Ramallah.

“Hundreds of Israelis attacked Palestinian villages, setting fire to dozens of houses and vehicles,” the Israeli MCO said.

In the West Bank, lands occupied by Israel since 1967, 490,000 settlers live among three million Palestinians. These settlements are considered illegal under international law.

Yesh Din expressed reservations about the latest figures released by the Israeli police, which claim that such acts of violence decreased in 2023 compared to 2022.

For the mco, the police only count the number of complaints filed, a number that is far less than the number of violent incidents that occur and go unreported because of the Palestinians’ lack of trust in the Israeli authorities, especially after the December 2022 rise to power of the most far-right government in the history of Israel under the prime ministership of Benjamin Netanyahu.

This lack of trust “probably results from a continued policy of leniency” towards the settlers.

The West Bank has been experiencing an escalation of violence since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 7. At least 317 Palestinians were killed by the army, as well as by settlers, according to the Palestinian Authority.