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February 2019

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Israeli settlers launched an attack on Palestinians in the Old City of Hebron in the southern occupied West Bank on Tuesday night, yelling “death to Arabs!” in the street and hurling rocks at Palestinian homes. Badee Dweik, co-Founder of the Human Rights Defenders group in Hebron, says the attack was a direct result of the lack of international human rights observers who had been expelled by the Israeli government. “Getting rid of [the observers] was a greenlight for settlers to be more violent, not just against Palestinians,but also against any internationals that they see here,” Dweik says.

You might imagine that a report by a multinational observer force documenting a 20-year reign of terror by Israeli soldiers and Jewish settlers against Palestinians, in a city under occupation, would provoke condemnation from European and US politicians. But you would be wrong. The leaking in December of the report on conditions in the city of Hebron, home to 200,000 Palestinians, barely caused a ripple. And now exposure of the confidential report has provided the pretext for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to expel the international observers. He shuttered their mission in Hebron this month, in apparent violation of Israel’s obligations under the 25-year-old Oslo peace accords.