Blackened walls, broken windows, charred cars: the Palestinian town of Huwara, in the occupied West Bank, discovered Monday the damage of an attack carried out the previous evening by Israeli settlers after the death of two of them, killed by Palestinian fire.
Tensions remained high on Monday. The Israeli army reported a new attack that killed a motorist at the end of the day near Jericho, in the West Bank, and said it was looking for the perpetrators.
The victim is an Israeli who also has American citizenship, according to the US State Department, which condemned the “atrocious” murder as well as that of the two Israeli settlers killed Sunday in Huwara.
State Department spokesman Ned Price also condemned “the large-scale, indiscriminate violence by settlers against Palestinian civilians following the killings.” “We expect the Israeli government to ensure that those responsible for these attacks are held fully accountable,” he added.
The violence comes as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is escalating sharply and officials on both sides pledged at a Sunday meeting in Jordan to “prevent any further violence”.
On Sunday evening, hundreds of Israeli settlers entered Huwara, a small town in the northern West Bank, where they threw stones at Palestinian homes, set fire to buildings, garbage cans and cars.
In the early morning, a landfill looked like a car graveyard, with dozens of charred vehicles.
“They burned everything they found,” resident Kamal Odeh told AFP: “They burned more than 20 buildings, including shops, houses. Even the trees were not spared. “.
According to Wajeh Odeh, a member of the Huwara municipality, more than 100 cars were burned and 30 houses burned or damaged.
“We consider these acts to be acts of terrorism,” an Israeli army official said, estimating that 300 to 400 settlers entered the Palestinian city in a spirit of “revenge.”
Eight Israelis were arrested, most of whom have since been released, according to police.
“There can be no justification for terrorism, arson and revenge against civilians,” said UN Middle East mediator Tor Wennesland.
The French Foreign Ministry has deemed “unacceptable” the violence, threatening “to degenerate out of control”, against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, territory occupied by Israel since 1967. It also “strongly condemned the attack which cost the life of two Israelis”.
The two brothers were driving in Huwara on Sunday afternoon when they were shot and killed in what the Israeli government called a “Palestinian terrorist attack”. The perpetrators of the attack are still being sought.
Later, a Palestinian was shot dead while Israeli forces and settlers were in Zaatara, a village near Nablus. The army told AFP that they had not shot him.
Several hundred people attended the funerals of the two slain settlers in Jerusalem on Monday. Their coffins, carried by relatives and soldiers, were covered with Israeli flags.
Rabbi Shmuel Yaniv, grandfather of the two brothers, said that “even in the face of evil” one must remember that “we were all created in the image of God.”
On Monday evening, the army said suspected Palestinian “terrorists” had shot and seriously injured a motorist near Jericho, saying they had set up roadblocks to find the perpetrators of the attack. The 27-year-old was pronounced dead at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
On the violence in Huwara, the Israeli Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, considered “intolerable a situation in which citizens take justice into their own hands”, after similar remarks by the Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, of settlement mayors and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
At the head of a government that includes several ministers who are themselves settlers, Mr. Netanyahu asked that we let “the security forces accomplish their mission”.
Israeli human rights organizations have denounced a “pogrom”, “supported” by the Israeli government, according to “Peace now”.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of “protecting terrorist acts perpetrated by settlers”.
The Israeli army, which has multiplied for almost a year in the West Bank the operations presented as “anti-terrorist”, carried out its deadliest incursion there last Wednesday since at least 2005, killing 11 Palestinians.
Since the beginning of the year, the conflict has claimed the lives of 63 Palestinians (including combatants and civilians including minors) and 13 Israelis (including minors and security forces) and one Ukrainian woman, according to a count of AFP compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
02/27/2023 21:53:31 – Huwara (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
