For more than five decades, the people of Palestine have endured intolerable circumstances under Israeli occupation and the Israeli‑Palestinian conflict remains locked in a dangerous paralysis that is fueling extremism and exacerbating tensions.
On the other hand, there is a growing risk of Israel’s more unilateral actions with its steadily advance of illegal settlements and planning processes, alongside demolitions and evictions, including in and around Jerusalem with continuous daily violence across the West Bank, mounting tensions in East Jerusalem and the refugee camps and exceeding settler violence.
On Aug. 5, Israel launched a series of surprise airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, sparking several days of fighting and the worst outbreak of violence since May 2021.
By the time a truce was called on Aug. 8 between Israel and the Islamic Jihad, a total of 49 Palestinians were killed, including 17 children and more than 300 were injured. On the Israeli side, 13 people sustained minor injuries.
Over the past 15 years, a series of military aggressions have wreaked havoc on the lives and well-being of the 2.2 million Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip – a population denied the right to peace, freedom and self-determination in the face of blockade and occupation, human rights violations, and crimes against humanity.
So far in 2022, the Israeli Occupying Forces (IOF) conducted 5392 incursions in the West Bank, including occupied East Jerusalem, during which 3290 Palestinians were arrested, including 310 children and 29 women. IOF also conducted 24 limited incursions into the eastern Gaza Strip and arrested 78 Palestinians, including 45 fishermen, 28 infiltrators, and five travelers via Beit Hanoun's “Erez” Crossing.
Besides, Israeli security forces have conducted continuous operations in different parts of the occupied West Bank in recent months, where many Palestinians were killed and hundreds wounded.
Growing up in military occupation and conflict has had a profound impact on Palestinian children in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.
Fifty-five years of occupation has impacted every aspect of their lives, from their safety and development to their psychosocial wellbeing and mental health, leaving them with a deep sense of insecurity, hopelessness, and frustration.
IOF and settlers have adopted numerous policies and practices against Palestinian children, consistently deploying excessive use of force, causing them severe injuries, and disregarding their humanity and their protected status under international law.
Israel should be added to a U.N. blacklist if its violence against Palestinian children is repeated this year, the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said last July.
In its annual report, the U.N. said Israeli forces killed 78 Palestinian children, maimed another 982 and detained 637 in 2021.
“I am shocked by the number of children killed and maimed by Israeli forces during hostilities, in air strikes on densely populated areas and through the use of live ammunition during law enforcement operations,” the U.N. secretary-general said in the report.
"Should the situation repeat itself in 2022, without meaningful improvement, Israel should be listed," he added.
On her part, U.N. rights chief Michelle Bachelet recently expressed "alarm" over the large number of Palestinians – particularly children – who have been killed and injured by Israeli occupation forces so far this year.
Almost 40 Palestinian children have been killed so far this year in the occupied territories, with Israeli forces appearing to use lethal force in a manner that violates international human rights law, Bachelet said in her statement.
"Inflicting hurt on any child during the course of conflict is deeply disturbing, and the killing and maiming of so many children this year is unconscionable," Bachelet added.
Nineteen Palestinian children were killed in occupied Palestinian territory in the last week alone, bringing the death toll of children since the start of the year to 37, according to the statement.
"International humanitarian law is clear. Launching an attack that may be expected to kill or injure civilians incidentally, or damage civilian objects, in a disproportionate manner to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated is prohibited. Such attacks must stop," Bachelet said.
On the other hand, in its 2021 annual review, Defense for Children Palestine (DCIP) documented 60 Palestinian children killed during Israel's military assault on the besieged Gaza strip in May 2021, dubbed "Operation Guardian of the Walls," and 685 injured during the military offensive.
Israeli settlement construction and expansion in the West Bank and East Jerusalem have continued under every Israeli government since Israel captured the territories in the 1967 Middle East war.
However, construction accelerated in the last few years under former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with a significant boom during the former U.S. President Donald Trump’s U.S. administration, which Palestinians accused of having a strong pro-Israel bias.
Besides, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett‘s government-backed settlement construction and is followed by Prime Minister Yair Lapid— a practice that the U.N. Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2334 enshrines as “a flagrant violation under international law ... [that must] immediately and completely cease.” Given the longstanding premise that a negotiated agreement would be based on a land-for-peace formula, establishing a Palestinian state on territories occupied in 1967, the Israeli government’s continued expropriation of parts of that territory for settlements is chipping away at the possibilities for a viable Palestinian state.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Israel is committing the crime of apartheid against Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT).
Since its establishment in 1948, Israel has pursued a policy of establishing and maintaining a “Jewish demographic majority,” Amnesty said. Israel also exercises full control over land and resources to benefit Jewish Israelis, including those in illegal settlements.
A recent report by the European Union on Israeli settlements highlighted that the year 2021 experienced a high rate of settlement units’ advancements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (22,030), enforcing the trend of a continuously increasing settlement expansion on occupied Palestinian territories.
Adding to the exponentially high figures in 2021 were particularly the advancement of settlement units in occupied East Jerusalem, which more than doubled compared to the previous year, from 6,288 housing units to 14,894.
Israeli settlements are fortified, Jewish-only housing complexes built on Palestinian land in violation of international law.
Around 750,000 Israeli settlers live in at least 250 illegal settlements in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem.
Bennett has made it clear that he has no interest in reviving the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and affirmed in an interview his longstanding position that he “opposes a Palestinian state and will not allow talks on the line of a Palestinian state.” Echoing Bennett, Israel’s more moderate alternate Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who took office last July — on his part, said that he will not seek peace talks once he takes office, despite his stated support for a two-state solution.
With the right-wing opposition and the governing coalition in agreement, it is clear that there will be no negotiations and no two-state solution any time soon, setting Israelis and Palestinians most likely on a disaster-bound trajectory.
On the other hand, the inaction of the international community and its failure to hold Israel accountable for its countless ongoing crimes and human rights violations created this culture of impunity which fuels Israel's brutal and illegal occupation.
Palestinians have the right to live in peace, free from fear and oppression and tangible steps are urgently needed to reverse the negative trajectory of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A just solution that ensures the full enjoyment of human rights and dignity for the Palestinian people is the only way to achieve a just and lasting peace in the region and ensure the well-being of the Palestinian and Israeli people alike.
The lack of a political horizon after decades of conflict is killing hope and providing space for those not interested in sustainable peace.
Any effort to achieve real peace must solve the delayed core issues, including the Palestinian people's dispossession, Jerusalem's status, and the supposedly temporary military occupation that has endured since 1967.
The U.N. special coordinator for the Middle East peace process told the Security Council recently that “without a realistic prospect of an end to the occupation and the realization of a two-state solution ... it is only a matter of time before we face an irreversible, dangerous collapse and widespread instability.” The recurrent wars and violence around Gaza, tensions in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, both with Israeli forces and among Palestinians, signal clearly that the status quo cannot endure.
