Sunday, June 25, 2023

Palestinian Authority Blames Netanyahu for Persisting Settler Terrorism in West Bank


2023-June-25 

TEHRAN (FNA)- The Palestinian Authority (PA) held Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fully responsible for rising settler attacks against Palestinians across the occupied West Bank, saying the ongoing violence is fueled by far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday that the rise in Israeli crimes “reflects a policy adopted by the far-right Netanyahu administration, and is also a direct reflection of the campaigns of incitement to murder Palestinians, especially by extremist racists like Ben-Gvir and his followers”, presstv reported.

“The ruling Israeli coalition systematically undermines any regional and international efforts to restore the political horizon to resolve the conflict and creates more escalation in an attempt to impose the logic of military occupation,” the statement added.

The ministry also called on the international community to stop its double standards in dealing with international principles, resolutions and agreements signed under the auspices of world bodies.

More than 600,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories of the West Bank and East Al-Quds.

All the settlements are illegal under international law. The UN Security Council has condemned Israel’s settlement activities in the occupied territories in several resolutions.

According to human rights groups, acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians and their property are a daily occurrence throughout the occupied West Bank.

Earlier on Saturday, several houses and vehicles were set on fire by extremist Israeli settlers in the village of Umm Safa, North of Ramallah.

The official Palestinian news agency WAFA, citing local sources, reported that scores of Israeli settlers, some armed with rifles and guarded by Israeli army forces, stormed the village and fired indiscriminately at everything they came across, including homes and vehicles.

The shooting attack also caused damage to an ambulance. A paramedic was slightly injured by a gunshot while moving a patient in urgent condition to a hospital.

Israeli soldiers and settlers have been escalating their attacks against Palestinian civilians in the occupied territories, in an attempt to forcibly expel Palestinians from their lands and make way for expanding illegal Jewish-only settlements.

Meanwhil, the official Palestinian news agency reported that a Palestinian man succumbed to his wounds a day after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid in the Northern part of the occupied West Bank.

WAFA, citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health, announced the death of 39-year-old Tareq Mousa Idris on Saturday.

The ministry said Mousa was shot in the stomach as Israeli troops stormed Askar refugee camp, located on the outskirts of the city of Nablus, on Friday morning.

Following his injury, the Palestinian man was moved to Specialized Arab Hospital in Nablus, where he underwent operations and stayed in a critical condition until he was pronounced dead.

The development comes a few hours after a Palestinian teenager was left bleeding to death after a shooting attack at Qalandia military checkpoint.

Ishaq Hamdi Ajlouni, 17, was shot and killed by Israeli forces after he opened fire at the checkpoint on Saturday, lightly wounding a security guard, WAFA reported.

The Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of the Fatah movement, said in a statement that Aljouni was its member.

“Our heroic fighters … were able to directly target occupation [Israeli] soldiers at Qalandia checkpoint,” the brigades said in a statement.

Israel said the young gunman, from the Kafr ‘Aqab neighborhood just North of the checkpoint, used an M-16 rifle to carry out the purported shooting.

Meanwhile, doctors at An-Najah National University Hospital in Nablus had to remove an eye of five-year-old Khaled Akram Malalha, who was injured on Friday during confrontations that erupted near the village of Bizzariya, located 13.3 kilometers (8.2 miles) Northwest of Nablus.

The Palestinian child was shot in the eye while he was in his father's vehicle.

Israeli forces have killed at least 180 Palestinians, including 26 children, so far this year, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.

The death toll includes 36 Palestinians who lost their lives during a four-day Israeli onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip between May 9 and 13.

Will the IDF really treat settler violence as ‘terrorism’?
Senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur on bureaucratic reasons why life is more difficult for the Palestinians; military correspondent Emanuel Fabian on five days of vigilante attacks
Today, 
Welcome to The Times of Israel’s Daily Briefing, 


Senior analyst Haviv Rettig Gur and military correspondent Emanuel Fabian join host Amanda Borschel-Dan.


Yesterday, during Shabbat, several dozen settler vigilantes rampaged for the fifth consecutive day following Tuesday’s fatal Palestinian terror shooting, this time through the Palestinian West Bank village of Umm Safa, setting fire to vehicles and homes. What else do we know about this attack and where was the IDF?

Rettig Gur speaks at length about how Israel is failing to follow through on “managing” or “shrinking” the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What are some “boring” bureaucratic ways in which Palestinians are being blocked from basic necessities such as electricity and sewage?


Israel’s police minister Ben-Gvir rebukes forces over ‘punishment’ of settlers


Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir arrives at the scene of a suspected Palestinian shooting attack that killed four people near the Jewish settlement of Eli, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on June 20, 2023. (Reuters)

Reuters, Jerusalem
Published: 25 June ,2023: 

Israel’s far-right police minister rebuked the force on Sunday for what he called “collective punishment” of Jewish settlers, as cracks widened between the security services and the government over sectarian violence in the occupied West Bank.

Settler rampages in Palestinian towns and villages after the killing of four Israelis in a Hamas gun ambush have drawn international condemnation and US statements of concern.

US-brokered peace talks aimed at founding a Palestinian state in the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza collapsed in 2014. Most countries deem the settlements Israel built on land it seized in the 1967 war as illegal, a view Israel disputes.

Israel’s military, police, and domestic security service chiefs said in a statement on Saturday that the settlers’ actions over the last week amounted to “nationalist terrorism,” which they pledged to fight.

The terminology upset far-right members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, who in the past have rejected comparisons between Jewish and Palestinian militants.

One of them, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, said on Sunday he had demanded police explain why they had blocked the gates to the settlement of Ateret to screen those coming and going and “tased a person who was standing nearby”.

Ben-Gvir told the police chief that “he opposes any violation of the law” but cannot accept “collective punishment” of settlers, a statement from the minister’s party said.

Police spokespeople did not immediately respond for comment.

The military said it detained a soldier suspected of taking part in a “violent confrontation” in Umm Safa village, where bystander video showed two men aiming rifles in the direction of a Palestinian shouting at them in Arabic. Gunshots can be heard.

Netanyahu has sought to calm Western concern about his ultranationalist partners, saying he would steer policy. But the veteran politician has raised US, hackles with settlement building.

Last week he issued a general censure of rioting in the West Bank. Asked if Netanyahu agreed with the security chiefs’
designation of the rampages as “terrorism,” his office referred Reuters to that statement and declined further comment.

At least two cabinet ministers from Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party shied from the term.

“I think the (rampages) are actions, nationalist actions -- as they have been designated -- taken against a nationalist backdrop, and that’s something that shouldn’t be permitted,” Likud’s Energy Minister Israel Katz told Army Radio.

“Terrorism is something different.”

Israel settlers shoot at journalists, attack ambulance in West Bank

The New Arab Staff
24 June, 2023

Settlers stormed the Palestinian village of Umm Safa near Ramallah, shooting at homes, said local mayor Marwan Sabbah.


Palestinian Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila (right) condemned an Israeli settler attack on an ambulance [Patrizia Cortellessa/Pacific Press/LightRocket/Getty-archive]

Israeli settlers shot at journalists and homes and attacked an ambulance on Saturday amid a period of heightened violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

Settlers stormed the Palestinian village of Umm Safa near Ramallah, shooting at homes, said local mayor Marwan Sabbah.

A horse was killed and some homes partly caught alight, he was cited as saying by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.

An ambulance and other vehicles were damaged, with a paramedic shot and mildly wounded while transporting someone to a hospital.

Wafa said the ambulance was shot. There were reportedly dozens of settlers who stormed Umm Safa.

The Palestinian health ministry issued a statement on the messaging app Telegram saying an ambulance with a patient on board had been attacked near Umm Safa.

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Sam Hamad

Health Minister Mai Al-Kaila, who condemned the attack, said settlers threw stones at the vehicle, with the driver left injured.

The patient was not hurt, she said, urging the international community to protect medical staff and Palestinians from ongoing Israeli settler terrorism.

It was unclear why the details of the incident differed between Wafa and the health ministry's accounts.

It did not appear that two different ambulances were attacked as photos published by the two organisations seemed to be of the same vehicle.

A cameraman for the official Palestine TV, Mohammad Radi, said settlers shot at him and his colleague while they reported on the assault against Umm Safa. Their camera was damaged by a bullet, Radi said.

Separately, settlers attacked Palestinians and destroyed six tents in Al-Mughayyir, a village in Ramallah and Al-Bireh province.

Settlers attacked Bedouins camping in the village, witnesses said. An 80-year-old was taken to hospital after being hurt in the violence.


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