A/HRC/25/38 VI. Failure to maintain public order, settler violence and lack of accountability 37. Israeli settlers continued to attack Palestinians and their property in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, during the reporting period. The lack of effective accountability and protection from such incidents by the Israeli authorities continues to be of serious concern.104 The enduring failure of Israel to comply with its legal obligations in this regard is part of wider systemic failures to guarantee Palestinians’ human rights.105 This has allowed settler violence to continue unabated and even, at times, to flourish (see para. 39 below). 38. Israel is obliged under international law to protect Palestinians and their property from acts of violence by settlers, to ensure accountability for crimes committed, and to provide a remedy for any violations suffered. This derives from the obligations of Israel as an occupying Power, including its obligations to protect Palestinians in the occupied territory and guarantee their rights,106 which entails taking action to prevent individuals or groups, including settlers, from interfering with the enjoyment of rights by Palestinians. Settler violence: figures and trends 39. Incidents of settler-related violence continue to be recorded at an alarming rate. During the reporting period, OCHA recorded 270 such incidents, leading to the injury of 103 Palestinians, an increase in comparison with the same period in 2012, when 249 incidents were registered, resulting in injury to 97 Palestinians. During the reporting period, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs also recorded 30 incidents of violence perpetrated by Palestinians against settlers, in which two settlers were killed and 41 others injured, which also indicates an increase in violence against Israeli settlers, compared with the same period in 2012, when 27 incidents, leading to the injury of 38 settlers, were recorded. 40. In 2013, there has also been an increase in settler or Israeli violence against Palestinians and their property in East Jerusalem. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs recorded 58 such incidents during the reporting period in 2013, compared with 41 in the same period in 2012. On 14 August 2013, OHCHR documented a case in which Israeli religious students from a Talmudic school in East Jerusalem attacked a Palestinian family. According to the family, more than 40 students were hiding behind a building near to the family house, and attacked them with wooden sticks, metal bars and chains. The mother and two of her sons were hospitalized as a result of their injuries. 41. On 18 August 2013, in a case monitored by OHCHR, a 47-year-old Palestinian shepherd from the village of Mikhmas, near Ramallah, was taking his sheep through a water drainage tunnel under Road 60 to graze on privately-owned Palestinian land near the partially evacuated settler outpost of Migron, built on privately-owned Palestinian land. 104 105 106 A/66/364, A/67/375 and A/68/513; The Karp Report: An Israeli Government Inquiry into Settler Violence against Palestinians in the West Bank (Institute for Palestine Studies, 1984); reports of the Shamgar Commission (1994) and the committee headed by Talia Sasson (2005); Yesh Din, “Law Enforcement upon Israeli Civilians in the West Bank”, Data sheet, March 2012. A/68/502, paras. 29-43. Hague Regulations, article 43; Fourth Geneva Convention, articles 4, 27 and 55; International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, article 6; Human Rights Committee, general comment No. 31 (2004) on the nature of the general legal obligation imposed on States parties to the Covenant, paras. 15-18; ICJ: A/ES-10/273 and Corr.1 (note 2 above). 15