Israeli forces have maintained a siege of Hebron for a 10th consecutive day, with 15 homes demolished, hundreds of businesses closed and more than 3,300 Palestinians displaced or otherwise affected, according to the city’s municipality.
The lockdown in the occupied West Bank city was imposed after an attack near Hebron on October 23 in which two Israeli soldiers were killed. Palestinian families have since faced the threat that military operations could be widened.
Mayor Yousef al-Jabari said the measures had caused daily economic losses of more than 12 million shekels (£3.8 million). Infrastructure damage had exceeded $1.9 million, while losses in the health and environmental sectors were estimated at about $160,000, he said.
Israeli forces have also forced 327 businesses to shut, while about 80,000 students have been unable to attend school during the 10-day closure, according to the mayor.
Al-Jabari said Hebron accounted for about 40 per cent of the Palestinian economy and described the siege as “collective punishment”.
Raids and settler attacks in the West Bank
Arrests continued in Hebron and elsewhere in the occupied West Bank on Sunday. Ten Palestinian teachers were arrested in Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron, and their vehicle was seized, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
Video shared by Palestinian media and verified by Al Jazeera showed Israeli forces raiding a United Nations-run school in the Shufat refugee camp in occupied East Jerusalem.
The United Nations humanitarian office, OCHA, said Israeli settlers carried out 397 attacks on Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in October. It was the highest monthly total recorded since monitoring began in 2006.
Between October 20 and 26, attacks affected 49 Palestinian communities, mostly while Palestinians were harvesting olives on their land. Fifty-seven Palestinians, including nine children, were injured by Israeli forces and settlers during the period.
Thirty-four of those injuries were caused by military gunfire or physical assaults, while 23 resulted from settler attacks, according to the figures reported by Wafa.
Since the beginning of 2015, Israeli authorities have issued 9,518 demolition or stop-work notices against Palestinian property in the occupied West Bank, the Palestinian Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission said. Of those, 344 were issued during the first nine months of this year.
