Alwaght- A United Nations agency says that the Israeli regime killed 107 Palestinians and injured 3,247 others in 2016.
In a monitoring report released on Wednesday, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that some 4.8 million Palestinians were affected by the Israeli occupation, two million of them “in need of humanitarian assistance and protection.”
“The prolonged occupation, with no end in sight, cultivates a sense of hopelessness and frustration that drives continued conflict” in the region, the report said.
The report published days ahead of the 50th anniversary of the Israeli occupation of al-Quds (Jerusalem) stressed that the "occupation policies and practices remain the key cause of humanitarian needs in the occupied Palestinian territories," noting that the internal Palestinian political division is a serious contributing factor to the humanitarian crisis.
The report pointed to the continued displacement of the Palestinians, adding that 47,200 people, including children, (9,000 families), remained displaced until the end of 2016.
According to the OCHA, the Israeli occupation authorities demolished 1,094 buildings over claims that they lacked construction permits including 29 houses that were punitively demolished or sealed following attacks allegedly carried out by Palestinians against Israeli targets.
The OCHA report warned that thousands of Palestinians in Area C (which is under Israeli control according to the Oslo Agreement signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1993) and in East al-Quds were exposed to forcible transfer policies "due to a coercive environment generated by the Israeli regime policies and practices".
The UN agency revealed that the Israeli imposed Gaza Strip blockade worsened due to the continued closure of the Rafah crossing by the Egyptian authorities, pointing out that the crossing was open for 44 days in 2016 compared to 32 days in 2015.
Meanwhile, the OCHA noted that it recorded 572 movement obstacles to the Palestinians' movement in December 2016 in addition to 110 others in the Israeli-controlled area in al-Khalil city.
The OCHA highlighted that tight restrictions were imposed on the movement of humanitarian organizations' staff into and out of Gaza with Israel rejecting 31% of permit applications to enter or exit Gaza.
The number of the incidents of impeding the movement of the staff of the United Nations and other international organizations in the West Bank was 211 in 2016 compared to 183 incidents in 2015, it said.
OCHA also recorded that the Israeli authorities demolished and confiscated 300 donor-funded buildings worth 730,000 dollars that were provided as humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians.
In the same context, more than 100 similar buildings received demolition, stop-work, or evacuation orders in addition to verbal warnings.
The OCHA head David Carden said that the crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories at its heart is due to the lack of protection for the Palestinian civilians and Israeli regime’s violations of the international law.
