The Palestinian foreign ministry on Friday described a Jewish settler attack on Palestinians in a village of the Israeli-occupied West Bank as “organised state terrorism.”
The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said one person died of gunshots fired by settlers and another was seriously wounded during the unrest.
Israeli leaders on Friday roundly condemned a deadly settler rampage in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a rare Israeli denunciation of settler violence that has grown more common since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
The settler riot in the village of Jit, near the city of Nablus in the northern West Bank, killed one Palestinian and badly injured others late on Thursday, Palestinian health officials said. Residents interviewed by reporters said at least a hundred masked settlers entered the village, shot live ammunition, burned homes and cars and damaged water tankers. Video showed flames engulfing the small village, which residents said was left to defend itself without military help for two hours.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he took the riots “seriously” and that Israelis who carried out criminal acts would be prosecuted. He issued what appeared to be a call for settlers to stand down.
“Those who fight terrorism are the IDF and the security forces, and no one else,” he said, using an acronym for the Israeli military.
President Isaac Herzog also condemned the attack, as did Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who said the settlers had “attacked innocent people.” He added they did not “represent the values” of settler communities.
The Palestinians seek the West Bank, which Israel captured in the 1967 Mideast war, as the heartland of a future state, a position with wide international backing.
It was unclear why the Jit attack yielded such a strong rebuke from Israeli leaders. A similar settler riot in the village of Al-Mughayyir in April went without comparable mention from the authorities.
Agencies
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