Shin Bet confirms that almost all Palestinian ‘attacks’ occur in occupied territories

87 per cent of stabbings or alleged stabbings carried out by Palestinians from October to January took place within the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), according to Israeli authorities.

In their latest monthly summary, the Israeli Security Agency (ISA or Shin Bet) recorded 166 “attacks” by Palestinians in the month of January (excluding Gaza), only one of which occurred “within the Green Line”, the internationally-recognised division between Israel and the OPT.

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While the vast majority of these ‘attacks’ were in the form of “firebombs” (i.e. Molotov cocktails), Shin Bet also logged nine stabbings, all taking place in the OPT.

The sole attack within the Green Line during January, according to Shin Bet, was the January 1 shooting at a Tel Aviv café; the perpetrator was a Palestinian citizen of Israel. Thus there were no attacks in January within the Green Line by Palestinians from the OPT.

Out of five Israeli fatalities in January, three were killed in the Tel Aviv attack (two at the café, and a taxi driver). The other two were both West Bank settlers. Uniformed occupation forces accounted for 36 per cent of the Israelis wounded during January.

Aslo read: The extrajudicial killings of Palestinians: untangling the inner conflict

These trends are consistent with the pattern over the previous three months, as Iwrote about last week in an article on the data being missed out in Western media coverage.

Based on Shin Bet’s figures, out of 1,336 attacks and alleged attacks conducted by Palestinians from October 1 to January 31, just 15 of them took place within the Green Line. When it comes to stabbings, 82 out of a total 94 attacks and alleged attacks have occurred in the OPT.

For Palestinians, meanwhile, January was another bloody, violent month under Israeli military occupation, with 18 Palestinians killed, and a further 582 injured. According to UN OCHA, January also saw Israeli forces demolish 85 structures in the OPT, displacing 108 Palestinians.