The Washington Post said that Israeli forces killed more Palestinians in 2022 than in any year since the United Nations began systematically recording the death toll in 2005.
According to figures provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the newspaper added that Israeli forces had killed 146 Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as of December 19, compared to 75 martyrs in 2021.
As for the records of the Palestinian Ministry of Health, 224 Palestinians (53 in the Gaza Strip and 171 in the occupied West Bank) were killed until December 26, according to the Palestinian News Agency (Wafa).
Wafa stated that 61 Palestinian children have been killed by the Israeli occupation since the beginning of this year 2022 (44 children in the West Bank and 17 children in the Gaza Strip).
The American newspaper also indicated that among the dead were two American citizens, Al-Jazeera correspondent Sherine Abu Aqelah and Omar Asaad (78 years), as their deaths received global attention and international criticism of Israel intensified.
Palestinian and Israeli rights groups and UN experts have blamed the bloodshed on Israel's excessive use of force, as well as an increase in settler attacks in the West Bank.
UN experts also condemned the spread of settler violence, and the use of excessive force by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in 2022, which makes it the bloodiest.
In addition to Israel killing Palestinians, the Authority for Palestinian Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs reported that the occupation forces had arrested about 5,500 Palestinians since the beginning of this year, and the Palestinian Prisoners Club stated last November that the Israeli authorities had arrested more than 750 Palestinian children since the beginning of the year, including wounded.