Two Palestinian children were shot dead by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) near the town of Beit Ummar, in the southern governorate of Hebron in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, November 13.

According to the Palestinian General Authority of Civil Affairs (GACA), the IOF withheld the bodies of the murdered 15-year-old boys, Bilal Baaran and Mohammad Abu Ayyash, and prevented medical crews from reaching them.

The homicides took place one week after the IOF had killed Mohammad Qasim and Mohammad Etayem, both 16 years old, in the West Bank town of al-Judeira, northwest of Jerusalem.

On Tuesday, November 11, Ayssam Ma’ala, 13, also succumbed to his injuries one month after inhaling tear gas bombs fired at him by the IOF, while he was picking olives near the West Bank village of Beita, south of Nablus.

Olive harvest season the most terrifying season for Palestinians in the West Bank

While the IOF continues to kill Palestinian civilians across the West Bank in cold blood, a considerable rise in settler violence has been also reported in the occupied territories during the olive harvest season in the last couple of months.

For decades, illegal Israeli settlers have intensified their attacks on Palestinians during their most significant agricultural season, as part of Israel’s systematic pastoral settlement policy.

Read more: Paradise lost: a Palestinian farmer on settler violence and dispossession

This year was the most violent olive harvest season ever for Palestinians. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Human Affairs (OCHA) said in a report published on Wednesday, November 12, that it documented 167 settler attacks related to the current year’s olive harvest season, which affected 87 Palestinian communities.

OCHA added that 29 of these attacks resulted in casualties among Palestinians, and damage to their properties, or both.

At least 30 Palestinians, including four children, were injured by Israeli settlers, and over 650 trees and saplings were damaged. The settlers also vandalized five vehicles, eight homes, and other livelihood structures.

Events in the West Bank may spill over and affect Gaza, says Marco Rubio

US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, warned Israel on Wednesday that the violent events taking place in the West Bank may endanger the ceasefire in the Gaza strip.

Speaking to journalists at the John C Munro Hamilton International Airport, Rubio said:

“Certainly there’s some concern about events in the West Bank spilling over and creating an effect that could undermine what we’re doing in Gaza. We don’t expect it to. We’ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

The post Israel kills five Palestinian children in West Bank in one week appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

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