January’s displacement numbers are notably excessive partially as a result of compelled elimination of a whole herding group within the Jordan Valley, OCHA says.
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Israeli settler violence and harassment within the occupied West Financial institution have displaced practically 700 Palestinians in January, the best quantity since Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza erupted in October 2023, in keeping with the United Nations.
No less than 694 Palestinians have been forcefully pushed from their houses final month, in keeping with an announcement by the United Nations Workplace for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) on Thursday.
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The workplace additionally stated in late January that settler violence has turn into a key driver of compelled displacement within the occupied West Financial institution.
January’s displacement numbers have been notably excessive partially as a result of displacement of a whole herding group within the Jordan Valley, Ras Ein al-Auja, whose 130 households left after months of sustained harassment.
“[The displacements] embrace 600 displaced from Ras Ein al-Auja community, marking the best single-community displacement attributable to settler assaults and entry restrictions over the previous three years,” the assertion stated.
It additionally stated that January 2026 marks the second-highest single‑month displacement for the reason that October 2023 peak at 1,032.
Settlers within the West Financial institution, which Israel has illegally occupied since 1967, use herding to ascertain a presence on agricultural land utilized by Palestinian communities and progressively deny them entry to those areas, in keeping with a 2025 report by Israeli NGO Peace Now.
The settlers rampage via Palestinian-owned land, destroying property and olive groves, injuring and killing civilians with impunity, usually with the Israeli navy’s backing.
‘No strain on Israel’
To power Palestinians out, settlers resort to harassment, intimidation and violence, “with the backing of the Israeli authorities and navy”, Peace Now stated.
“Nobody is placing the strain on Israel or on the Israeli authorities to cease this and so the settlers really feel it, they really feel the entire impunity that they’re simply free to proceed to do that,” stated Allegra Pacheco, director of the West Financial institution Safety Consortium, a bunch of NGOs working to help Palestinian communities towards displacement.
She pointed to an absence of consideration on the West Financial institution as one other driving issue.
“All eyes are targeted on Gaza with regards to Palestine, whereas we’ve an ongoing ethnic cleaning within the West Financial institution and no one’s paying consideration,” she instructed the AFP information company.
Palestinians within the West Financial institution are additionally displaced when Israel’s navy destroys buildings and dwellings it says are constructed with out permits or in extended Israeli raids in cities.
In January, 182 different Palestinians have been displaced attributable to residence demolitions, in keeping with OCHA.
Excluding occupied East Jerusalem, the West Financial institution is residence to greater than 500,000 Israelis dwelling in settlements and outposts thought of unlawful beneath worldwide regulation.
About three million Palestinians stay within the occupied West Financial institution.
