TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged around a military base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, setting fires, vandalizing military vehicles, spraying graffiti and attacking soldiers, the military said.
Sunday night’s unrest came after several attacks in the West Bank carried out by Jewish settlers and anger at their arrests by security forces attempting to contain the violence over the past few days.
More than 100 settlers on Wednesday evening entered the West Bank town of Kfar Malik, setting property ablaze and opening fire on Palestinians who tried to stop them, Najeb Rostom, head of the local council, said. Three Palestinians were killed after the military intervened. Israeli security forces arrested five settlers.
Far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has often defended Israelis accused of similar crimes, offered a rare condemnation of Sunday’s violence. “Attacking security forces, security facilities, and IDF soldiers who are our brothers, our protectors, is a red line, and must be dealt with in full severity. We are brothers,” he wrote on X.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid told Israel’s Army radio that the riots were carried out by “Jewish terrorists, gangs of criminals, who feel backed by the (governing) coalition.”
A hard-line supporter of Jewish settlements, Ben-Gvir was previously convicted in Israel of racist incitement and support for terrorist groups, and has called for the deportation of all Arab citizens from Israel. Though once widely shunned by Israel’s politicians, Ben-Gvir’s influence has grown and alongside a shift to the right in the country’s electorate has further emboldened violence from extremist settlers in the West Bank.
Footage on Israeli media showed dozens of young, religious men typically associated with “ hilltop youth,” an extremist movement of Israeli settlers who occupy West Bank hilltops and have been accused of attacking Palestinians and their property. The footage showed security forces using stun grenades as dozens of settlers gathered around the military base just north of Ramallah. The Israeli military released photos of the infrastructure burned in the attack, which it said included “systems that help thwart terrorist attacks and maintain security.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Monday to “eradicate this violence from the root,” and implored the extremist settlers to remember that many of the security forces are exhausted reservists serving multiple rounds of duty.
Over the past two years of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Palestinian residents in the West Bank have reported a major increase in Israeli checkpoints and delays across the territory. Israel, meanwhile, says threats from the West Bank against its citizens are on the rise.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their future state. The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, and 500,000 Jewish settlers. The international community overwhelmingly considers settlements illegal.
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