The violence and harassment by Israeli settlers in the West Bank displaced nearly 700 Palestinians in January, a record high since the latest round of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict erupted on Oct 7, 2023, UN humanitarians said on Thursday.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), violence by Israeli settlers has become the primary driver of forced displacement in the West Bank.
As a result of relentless settler harassment, around 130 Palestinian families have been forced to permanently leave their homes in the region, OCHA said.
UN data shows record number of Palestinians displaced from West Bank by Israel
UN data shows record number of Palestinians displaced from West Bank by Israel
The expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) between Russia and the United States has raised concerns among Russian experts, who warned that the absence of a successor pact could spark a new arms race.
The New START, signed by Russia and the United States in 2010, aims to limit the number of deployed nuclear warheads and their delivery systems. The treaty entered into force on Feb 5, 2011, with an initial validity period of 10 years and was later extended through Feb 4, 2026.
Experts in Moscow urged both sides to negotiate new arms control agreements and rules.
"The main risk is that the United States has opened the Pandora's box. A new arms race will begin, which will be difficult to control, because it lacks mutual oversight and transparency. The U.S. does not hide the fact that it wants to start a new arms race to defeat all geopolitical competitors," said Konstantin Blokhin, a researcher at the Center for Security Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Russian experts also said that the United States had not always adhered to its commitments even while the treaty was in force.
"The original treaty included provisions for inspections of nuclear facilities in both countries. In practice, however, inspections were interrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, and since then, the United States has on more than one occasion evaded obligations on this issue stipulated in the treaty," said Konstantin Kamkin, a senior researcher at the Primakov Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
Absence of new arms reduction accord risks renewed arms race: Russia experts
