Israeli security forces raided the\u00a0organisation\u2019s\u00a0offices in Ramallah and Hebron on 1 December,\u00a0vandalising\u00a0property and detaining staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n
According to OHCHR<\/a>, people present in the buildings were blindfolded,\u00a0handcuffed\u00a0and made to kneel or lie on the floor for several hours. Eight men were detained.<\/p>\n The union (UAWC) is\u00a0licensed under Palestinian law\u00a0and\u00a0has supported farmers and rural communities for decades \u2013 particularly those facing settler violence or the threat of forced displacement.\u00a0<\/p>\n The group is one of six Palestinian NGOs labelled \u201cterrorist\u201d by Israeli authorities in 2021 under legislation the UN says is overly broad and allows for sweeping, unjustified restrictions on civil society.\u00a0The rights office\u00a0stressed that Israel has not presented evidence to back up the allegations.<\/p>\n Most violent olive harvest on record<\/p>\n The raid followed several weeks of harassment and public incitement by Israeli settlers and settler leaders who targeted UAWC during the peak of the olive harvest. This year\u2019s harvest has been the most violent on record: by mid-November, OHCHR had documented 167 settler attacks affecting 87 Palestinian communities.<\/p>\n Violence has increasingly extended beyond\u00a0farmers themselves. Since 1 October, the UN office has recorded 81 violations by settlers and Israeli security forces against human rights defenders, volunteers providing protective presence, and\u00a0NGOs supporting communities targeted by settler violence or threatened by settlement expansion. These include 48 arrests or detentions,\u00a0and 22 physical assaults.<\/p>\n OHCHR said unnecessary or disproportionate force, arbitrary detention, and ill-treatment remain common features of Israeli security operations in the West Bank.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018Unlawful annexation\u2019<\/p>\n The cumulative effect, it warned, is a rapid shrinking of both physical and civic space for Palestinians, as settlement expansion and what the UN describes as\u00a0Israel\u2019s \u201cunlawful annexation\u201d of the territory continue.<\/p>\n Ajith\u00a0Sunghay,\u00a0head of OHCHR in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, said the international legal position is unequivocal: \u201cIsrael must end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and remove all settlers in accordance with the conclusions of the International Court of Justice<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs an occupying power, Israel has clear duties under international law,\u201d he added, including respecting and protecting Palestinians\u2019 rights to earn a living and to exercise freedom of expression and association.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israeli security forces raided the\u00a0organisation\u2019s\u00a0offices in Ramallah and Hebron on 1 December,\u00a0vandalising\u00a0property and detaining staff.\u00a0 According to OHCHR,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-167089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}