Police probe spate of settler attacks
Israeli police announced they have opened a probe into a settler convoy that paraded through the northern West Bank Palestinian town of Huwara.
ISRAELI Defence Minister Benny Gantz has pledged to act against recent acts of settler violence “with a heavy hand”, stressing “the recent incidents of nationalist crime in Judea and Samaria are grave and we will deal with them severely. Anyone who throws stones, torches vehicles or uses weapons … is a terrorist and that is how we will treat them”.
“I recently convened a number of discussions on the subject, and we are in the midst of a process aimed at strengthening the forces on the ground, building up the force together with police and the Shin Bet, and concentrating operational and legal resources [in the effort],” Gantz added.
The declaration came as Israeli police announced they have opened a probe into a settler convoy that paraded through the northern West Bank Palestinian town of Huwara on Monday, honking their horns and blaring music, with participants hurling stones at Palestinians, their cars and storefronts as they celebrated the release of a settler-violence suspect from prison.
“The friction began when a number of cars driving on Road 60 through Huwara, threw stones at businesses and parked cars and caused much damage,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
According to some reports, the settlers were attacked by locals, and in response, they threw stones back.
Three Palestinians were reportedly hurt in the incident and at least 20 cars and two stores are damaged.
Meanwhile, police have yet to arrest a suspect in the similarly filmed assault on Palestinians in the Palestinian village of Burin last Friday.
Security forces put up demolition notices on Sunday night in the illegal West Bank outpost of Givat Ronen, days after Jewish extremists, believed to have come from the outpost, attacked Palestinians and Israeli activists nearby.
The notices allow authorities to evacuate and demolish the buildings in three days’ time.
It was not known whether the demolition orders for the outpost, located south of Nablus, were tied to Friday’s events.
Footage from the Friday incident in Burin showed a group of men, apparently from Givat Ronen, attacking left-wing activists and Palestinians with clubs and stones, wounding at least six people and burning a car.
Police Minister Omer Barlev denounced the attack as “the organised action of a terror group”.
“It is the tip of the iceberg of a terror organisation,” Barlev told Kan news on Sunday.
He confirmed media reports that a police investigation was being assisted by the Shin Bet security service.
Barlev defended the lack of arrests of perpetrators from Friday’s attack, as well as at similar recent clashes, saying it takes time before the military is called to incidents, followed by a further delay until police are alerted, and by then “the terrorists are no longer there and have disappeared”.
Speaking on Radio 103FM, Barlev called the incident “another serious leap forward in the terror carried out by extremist settlers”.
But, he said it is quite possible that some of those involved are not even settlers but “others who arrive from other places”.
The violence drew denunciations from across the political spectrum, with several coalition lawmakers calling for the demolition of the outpost from where the assailants allegedly came.
Israeli security officials have warned that violence by Jewish extremists in the West Bank has spiked in recent months. Shin Bet officials told The Times of Israel in late December that Jewish extremist violence had increased by 50 per cent over the past year.
Nonetheless, the internal political debate over the phenomenon has been divisive. Right-wing Israeli politicians have resisted referring to these attacks as “settler violence,” charging that such characterisation is an attempt to besmirch all Jews living in the West Bank.
TIMES OF ISRAEL
comments