MPs visiting the West Bank raise concerns about settler violence targeting Palestinians

Two MPs currently visiting the West Bank say they're concerned about Israeli settler violence in the territory.

Liberal MPs Salma Zahid and Shafqat Ali are touring the West Bank and Jordan with New Democrat MPs Heather McPherson, Matthew Green and Lindsay Mathyssen. The week-long trip is sponsored by Canadian Muslim Vote, a registered non-profitcharity.

Ali said the MPs have heard from victims of settler violence since arriving in East Jerusalem earlier this week includingPalestinians who say they've been shot ortheir homes have been burned.

"These events are happening and I hear this on the ground from many people," Ali told CBC News on Wednesday.

"I think that needs to be looked at by [the] Israeli government so the violence would not escalate further."

The pace of both new Israeli settlement-building and forced removals of Palestinians in the West Bank has accelerated rapidly since Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu returned to power in 2022. Settlers say they are reclaiming land to which Israel has biblical and historical ties.

Canada, along with much of the international community, sees Israeli settlements in the West Bank, built on land captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war, as illegal and inflammatory.

Zahid said she noticed the level of settlement expansion as she and her fellow MPs arrived in the West Bank. She described the settlements as "gated communities."

"It gives me an idea what the Palestinian families have to go [through] in their day-to-day life I could see the challenges they are facing every day," she told CBC News.

Zahid said she heard from Palestinian doctors who described losing patients due to complications at checkpoints.

"Patients in critical care have to be transported from one ambulance to the other ambulance because the ambulance cannot enter certain areas," she said.

The West Bank has not seen the same volume of media coverage as Gaza, the main theater of conflict since Hamas's Oct.7 attacks. Since then, hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

The West Bank is administered by the Palestinian Authority, a political entity separate from Hamas which Canada lists as a terrorist organization. The Palestinian authority is recognized by the United Nations as the only representative Palestinian governing body.

WATCH | Canadian MPs visit West Bank:

Canadian MPs visit refugee camps in occupied Palestinian territory

8 months ago

Duration 0:01

Five Canadian MPs visited refugee camps in the occupied West Bank while on a weeklong tour of the region sponsored by a Muslim charity. Meanwhile, intense Israeli airstrikes hammer southern Gaza.

In December, the Canadian government joined 13 other countries, including the United Kingdom, France and the European Union, in calling on Israel to do more to stop "extremist settler violence" against Palestinians.

The U.S. and U.K. have also imposed travel bans on extremist settlers associated with acts of violence. The NDP has asked the Canadian government to follow suit and slap similar sanctions on extremist settlers.

Zahid said she plans to share what she's seen and heard with her caucus colleagues when she returns to Ottawa.

When askedfor comment on concerns about violence in the West Bank, a spokesperson for Israel's embassy in Ottawa said law enforcement agencies work"to prevent and prosecute any criminal activity in accordance with Israeli law."

Medicine headedto Gaza

Both Zahid and Ali raised concerns about the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the Gaza Strip.

Since the Oct. 7 attack in which 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 were taken hostage the Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza has estimated some 24,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel's military actions.

Israeli officials say their military takes precautions to limit civilian deaths in Gaza and blames Hamas for using civilians as "human shields."

A shipment of medicine for Palestinians and dozens of hostages held by Hamaswas en route to Gaza on Wednesday after France and Qatar mediated the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a week-long ceasefire in November.

Senior UN officials have warned that Gaza faces widespread famine and disease without more aid. UN officials say aid delivery is hobbled by the small number of openborder crossings, a slow vetting process and continued fighting.

Ali and Zahidsaidthe UN's concerns are echoed by aid organizations they've met with on their trip, many of which have beentrying to deliver aid to Gaza.

"The catastrophe in the region,it's beyond explanation because nothing is going in and out," Ali said.

Both MPssaid they believe a ceasefire is necessaryto get more aid into Gaza. Both Israel and the U.S. have ruled out any possibility of a ceasefire until Hamas has been dismantled.

The MPs have met the Canadian Mission to the West Bank on their visit and say it has facilitated some of their travels through the region.

This trip is the second by a group of Canadian MPs to the Middle East since Oct. 7.

In November, two Liberal and three Conservative MPs travelled to Israel to meet with survivors of Hamas's deadly attack and family members of those killed. That trip was sponsored by the Canadian group United Jewish Appeal.