ISRAEL has constructed almost 1,000 new barriers across the occupied West Bank since its invasion of Gaza began, the Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission says.

The mushrooming barriers and metal gates criss-cross Palestine’s roads and towns, denying Palestinians freedom of movement in their own country. Some have occupying Israeli troops positioned at them, and many open and close erratically, disrupting Palestinians’ ability to go to work or school, visit relatives or access medical care.

The commission counted 916 new gates, barriers and walls erected in the West Bank since October 7 2023, when a deadly Hamas raid on Israel triggered the genocidal invasion of Gaza.

The building spree reinforces accusations that Israel has accelerated its colonisation of land in the West Bank, which is home to a majority of Palestinians and most of the land designated internationally as part of a future Palestinian state, as the world’s attention has been focused on its war on Gaza.

The UN Human Rights Office in the Occupied Palestinian Territory said this month that the number of Palestinians killed in the West Bank, where no war has raged, by Israel security forces soldiers or Israeli settlers since October 7 2023 had reached 1,001, the 1,001st being nine-year-old Mohammad Bahjat al-Hallaq, shot dead while playing football in Ar-Rihiya, Hebron, on October 16.

The figure represents 43 per cent of killings of Palestinians in the West Bank over the last 20 years, indicating a steep escalation in Israeli violence. One in five of the victims have been children, the youngest being two-year-old Laila Khatib, shot dead in her own bedroom by Israeli forces in As Shuhada, Jenin, in January as part of an Israeli military operation to drive out the residents of three Palestinian refugee camps.

• Lebanese President Joseph Aoun said today he had instructed the army to respond to further Israeli incursions onto Lebanese territory.

  Israeli troops crossed into Lebanon overnight and killed a municipal worker as he slept in the town hall in the border town of Blida, one of many Israeli violations of its ceasefire with Lebanon.