How escalating violence in the West Bank is affecting aid workers

While the world has been watching the war and devastating humanitarian crisis unfold in the Gaza Strip, escalating violence in the West Bank — around 70 miles away — is also taking a huge toll on communities. More than 475 Palestinians have been killed in the occupied Palestinian territory so far this year as of Dec. 14 — 276 since Oct. 7 alone, according to the United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, or UNOCHA. Two-thirds of fatalities have occurred during search-and-arrest military operations. Four Israelis — including three members of Israeli forces — have also been killed. More than 1,200 Palestinians in the territory have been displaced from their homes. The surge in violence is also impacting aid organizations’ ability to work in the fragmented territory. The World Health Organization has recorded obstructions for medical staff and ambulances. And on Dec. 14, Médecins Sans Frontières reported on X that Israeli forces stopped ambulances taking discharged patients home outside Khalil Suleiman hospital, in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. “Paramedics and ambulance drivers were ordered out of the ambulances, stripped and made to kneel in the street. The patients were left in the ambulances. … All of this happened in full view of our team,” MSF wrote. Other aid workers on the ground reported limited access to communities and security concerns. “The biggest issue we are currently facing is the same as all Palestinians in the West Bank — restrictions on movements,” Sarah Davies, of the International Committee of the Red Cross, or ICRC, told Devex in an email. “Even for some colleagues who have been working for the ICRC in the West Bank for almost forty years, the situation is extremely worrying, something they don’t recall seeing on this level.” Movement was already heavily controlled in the occupied territory, but Israeli authorities brought in more military checkpoints, personnel, and roadblocks following the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel, when at least 1,200 people were killed, and the start of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has killed close to 20,000 people. Adam Bouloukos, director of the Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA affairs in the West Bank, described it as a “complete military lockdown on the West Bank.” For Salvi Ros, coordinator at aid organization Médicos del Mundo in Jerusalem, the restrictions have made it more difficult — particularly for Palestinian colleagues — to access areas where the NGO often has to conduct “emergency response” to violent incidents. Ros said it can take several hours for a team to respond to an incident just 30 miles away. Checkpoints “mean that the time in which we respond and get to the communities is getting longer, and it also means we are getting to less communities because we need more time on the road … just at the moment when incidents have multiplied by two or three,” he said. UNOCHA recorded 314 Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians since Oct. 7, and this year’s average of three incidents of settler violence per day has increased to seven per day. ‘Lethal’ lack of trust Then there’s the security risk for aid workers themselves. In late November, Ros and his colleagues were leaving the city of Jericho in a car authorized as part of a coordination agreement between Médicos del Mundo and the District Coordination and Liaison Office, allowing the organization’s workers to skip the queue and pass quickly through a military checkpoint. But the soldier on duty didn’t recognize the car, according to Ros: “He pointed directly at us, he shouted, and he started to fire in the air.” No one was hurt in the incident, but the organization has suspended the coordination agreement for now, he said. “It’s getting more and more difficult to guarantee the safety of our teams,” said Ros. “Even though we are following security protocols, there is fear.” Eva Sánchez, Middle East representative for the NGO consortium Asamblea Cooperación por la Paz, based in Ramallah, said there has been a big increase in this kind of incident. “We’ve tried to limit movements to not find ourselves in complicated situations,” she said. The lack of access to communities can lead to “big delays” in the organization’s staffers’ ability to provide psychosocial and legal support to Palestinian people, particularly women and children. “These people, who obviously need more support than ever … are not able to receive it,” she said. Israeli human rights and civil society NGOs have called on the international community to “act urgently to stop the state-backed wave of settler violence.” “Everybody's armed … things can go pear-shaped pretty quickly. So I would say that security and the risks to my staff have certainly increased since the 7th of October,” Bouloukos said, adding that some staff had been threatened when driving in a U.N. vehicle. He noted that people are fearful because of the number and intensity of Israeli incursions — reportedly to expose explosive devices. “They’re called search and arrest operations, but they’re really full-scale military operations in very densely populated urban areas that have already quite fragile infrastructure,” he said, adding that security forces rip up road networks and cause infrastructure damage. Some of these incursions have affected UNRWA facilities, meaning repairs have to be made. “Sometimes we have to do sort of small scale civil works, let’s say, in order to provide access to services to the refugee community,” he said. As well as logistical and security challenges, some organizations have experienced funding issues. Germany’s leading development agency, BMZ, suspended €2.12 million ($2.32 million) in funding to Médicos del Mundo back in October while it conducted a review to ensure the money was not being funneled to Hamas, according to Ros. Though the funding was recently restarted, he said a certain amount of damage had already been done. “These political decisions have deeply affected our projects being able to function. … The organization has absorbed a good part of the cost — such as costs of personnel — from its own funds, but we don’t have that much capacity,” he said, adding that it is during emergency situations when donor trust is needed most. “This lack of trust is lethal.” Chronically underfunded UNRWA has had a different experience. Bouloukos said that the war in Gaza and the West Bank appears to have “awakened a number of donors and funding is coming in.” But he noted that it’s still unclear if that funding will be allocated to emergency response activities or if it would help fund UNRWA’s program budget. Unlike other agencies, he noted, UNRWA has no reserves. In early December, USAID Administrator Samantha Power announced that the United States will provide more than $21 million in humanitarian assistance for the people of Gaza and the West Bank affected by the ongoing conflict, building on a previous allocation of $100 million announced in October. It is not yet clear how much of this will go to the West Bank or to which implementing organizations. Rising concerns Increasing levels of violence had already been a cause of concern in recent years. With 155 Palestinian fatalities recorded, 2022 was the West Bank’s deadliest year in over a decade — until 2023 overtook it. In July, Khaled Khiari, the U.N.’s assistant secretary-general for the Middle East, sounded the alarm, warning members of the U.N. Security Council of a “deterioration” and rising insecurity and violence in the occupied West Bank. He highlighted the Israeli military operation in the Jenin refugee camp on July 3 and 4 — marked by multiple drone airstrikes, the use of over 1,000 ground troops, and the targeting of sites close to U.N. facilities and a school — as the deadliest single operation in the territory since the U.N. began tracking casualties in 2005. He also noted several attacks carried out by Palestinians against Israelis. Aid workers expressed increasing concerns about what they perceive as Israel’s crackdown on civil society, including a raft of measures that could prevent NGOs from being able to function and which activists say clamp down on freedom of speech. This includes a proposed bill in May to impose a 65% tax on foreign government donations to Israeli and Palestinian civil society organizations — which critics suggested would “silence” NGOs in the region, according to reporting from Al Jazeera. The U.N. has also been caught up in rising tensions with Israel, with humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories Lynn Hastings’ visa not being renewed — which Bouloukos described as a “pretty bad move politically in the middle of a conflict.” Desperate times There’s a sense of desperation and sadness among staffers — both in terms of what is taking place in Gaza and in the West Bank, said Sánchez. Davies agreed. “The restrictions of movement, the fate of the people ICRC work with at large and the rise in violence and destruction do impact the morale of our team,” she said of her colleagues, who are collecting tracing requests from Palestinians in either Gaza or the West Bank searching for news of a loved one. “While they are dedicated to providing reassurance wherever possible, it is very emotionally heavy for the staff who operate this,” said Davies. Sánchez said that it’s important to put a spotlight on the situation because though the focus on Gaza is obviously very important, the increase in violence in the West Bank is being forgotten. “It’s fundamental that people, and donors, don’t forget what is happening,” she said. “When there is a cease-fire [in Gaza] we’ll be able to see exactly how feasible it is to continue working in some areas, or not.”