Qatar: Qatari daily Al-Raya said on Saturday that Israel's actions in the occupied Palestinian territories amounted to a systematic campaign of repression, settlement expansion and land seizure aimed at driving Palestinians from their land and undermining their security and livelihoods.
According to Qatar News Agency, in an editorial headlined "Israel Burns Palestinian Land and Paves the Way for Forced Displacement," the newspaper said shootings, the uprooting of trees, the burning of fields, restrictions on access to land, property seizures and the demolition of homes and agricultural facilities were part of a broader policy rather than isolated incidents.
Al-Raya said calls from Israeli extremists for the expulsion of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank and Gaza were increasingly being echoed by members of the country's far-right government. It accused government officials of inciting violence against Palestinians and the destruction of their property, while advocating the removal of the territory's indigenous population.
It said Israel had increasingly translated such rhetoric into action through settlement expansion, the encirclement of Palestinian communities and attacks by settlers, including the burning of farms and shooting at residents, with Israeli forces providing protection.
The newspaper cited United Nations documentation as evidence of what it described as a deliberate policy of forced displacement. Referring to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, it said Israeli forces had forcibly displaced more than 33,000 Palestinians from the Jenin, Nur Shams and Tulkarm refugee camps in the occupied West Bank in January and February 2025 and had continued to prevent their return, in violation of international law. It said Israeli forces had also killed civilians, destroyed hundreds of homes and damaged roads and other infrastructure.
Figures from the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, cited by Al-Raya, showed that 900 fires targeting Palestinian property, homes, vehicles and facilities had been recorded since January 2023, with colonists responsible for about 89% of them. In August alone, the commission recorded 2,030 attacks against Palestinians and the seizure of about 1,629 dunams of Palestinian land, the newspaper said.
Al-Raya said the scale and persistence of the violence made statements of condemnation insufficient. It called on the international community to take concrete steps to protect Palestinian civilians, halt settlement expansion and land seizures, and hold those responsible to account.
The newspaper warned that continued international inaction would allow the situation to deteriorate further, with violations of international law and Palestinian rights becoming entrenched on the ground.