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‘We need burning villages’: Coalition lawmaker backs unprecedented settler rampage

February 27, 2023
Bharat Times English News

the morning after fatal and unprecedented stampede The settlers retaliated by torching dozens of Palestinian vehicles as well as several houses deadly palestinian terrorist attackOne member of the coalition gave his full support to the rioters, saying: “A closed, burnt-out Huwara – that’s what I want to see.”

There was a tense calm in the Palestinian city of Huwara on Monday morning, as pictures posted on social media showed dozens of burnt-out vehicles and sooty buildings, the worst outbreak of settler violence in decades.

“It was mortal danger. You could not step out of the house, you were afraid of getting shot in the head at any moment,” an unnamed resident of Huwara told Army Radio on Monday morning, recalling the events of the previous night.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said one person was killed in Israeli firing during riots in the city of Za’atara, south of Huwara, and near the settlement of Kafar Tapua. The Palestinian Red Crescent medical service said two other people were shot and wounded, a third person was stabbed and a fourth was beaten with an iron bar.

But in a media attack on Monday morning, coalition MK Zvika Fogel of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party – chairman of the Knesset’s national security committee – was clear in his support for the rioters and his party leader Itamar Ben Gvir condemned the government. . is a member of.

“I want to restore security for the residents of the State of Israel,” Fogel told Gali Israel radio. “How do we do it? We stop using the word ‘proportionality.’ We stop with our objection to collective punishment [just] Because it doesn’t fly with all types of jurisdictions. We take off the gloves.

“Yesterday, a terrorist came from Huwara. A closed, lit-up hoover—that’s what I want to see. This is the only way to get redress. After a murder like yesterday’s, when the IDF doesn’t act, we need to burn down villages.

Committee head and Otzma Yehudit MK Zvika Fogel leads a meeting of the National Security Committee of the Knesset in Jerusalem on February 22, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

He criticized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, saying he was ashamed that the coalition of which he is a part was “stuttering” in its response to Palestinian terror.

In a separate interview with Army Radio, Fogel said he viewed the outcome of Sunday night’s rampage with “great favor”, adding: “They understood in Huwara that there is a balance of terror that the IDF has to achieve.” Management doesn’t.”

In both interviews, Fogel claimed that the settler riots had achieved deterrence against Palestinian terrorism, the likes of which have achieved nothing since Operation Protective Shield in 2002, a major IDF operation in the West Bank that sparked the Second Intifada. helped suppress

Fogel later tweeted that his comments had been “distorted”, without specifying how.

“I said that the state is the one that should act to stop terrorists, certainly not the citizens. We should not reach a situation in which citizens take the law into their own hands.’ “The job of the government and the IDF is to provide the necessary security – aggressively and determinedly, not by restraint.”

Meanwhile, Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kreizer, a fellow on the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice committee, blamed settlers’ uproar for occasional minor violence during mass demonstrations against the government’s plan to overhaul the justice system. Sharply condemned the comparison.

A Palestinian man walks past burnt cars in the town of Hawara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Monday, Feb. 27, 2023. Hundreds of Israeli residents turned violent in the northern West Bank, setting cars and houses on fire after a Palestinian gunman killed two settlers. Palestinian officials say one person was killed and four others were badly injured. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

“I’m sure these people [the settlers] Inspired by the one-and-a-half-month protests here,” he said, to a chorus of condemnation from opposition MPs.

There was no comment Monday morning from party leader Ben Gwir on the Hawara riots. He has condemned the anti-government protests as “anarchist”.

Leader of the opposition Yair Lapid quickly responded to the interviews by tweeting: “This is not a completely right-wing government [as its supporters have proudly called it], It is a government of complete anarchy. MK Fogel should be jailed for inciting terrorism.

MK Miki Levy of Lapid’s Yesh Atid party urged the coalition to oust Fogel from his role as head of the National Security Committee.

Settler groups called for the demonstrations to avenge a Palestinian shooting attack in Huwara earlier in the day, which killed two Israeli brothers from the nearby Har Bracha settlement, aged 19 and 21.

Brothers Hallel (left) and Yagel Yaniv, who were killed in a terror attack in the West Bank city of Huwara on February 26, 2023. (courtesy)

Brothers Hallel and Yagael Yaniv were killed in the terrorist attack as they passed through Huwara, a Palestinian town regularly visited by Israeli motorists and often a flashpoint of tensions.

The Israel Defense Forces said the Palestinian gunman opened fire at close range at the Yanivs’ car on the Route 60 highway, then fled the scene, apparently on foot. He was absconding till Monday morning.

The victims, who were studying in the Hesder yeshiva program that combines military service with Torah study, were to be buried at Jerusalem’s military Mount Herzel cemetery at 2 p.m.

Army radio reported that shortly before the arson attack began, hundreds of settlers began marching towards Huwara, chanting “revenge”.

In the riots that followed, Palestinian medics said one person was killed and four others were badly injured in the Palestinian city of Huwara and other villages near Nablus.

Palestinian media said that about 30 houses and cars were set on fire. Pictures and videos on social media showed massive fires burning in Huwara and lighting up the sky.

Ghassan Douglas, a Palestinian official overseeing Israeli settlements in the Nablus area, said settlers burned at least six houses and dozens of cars in Huwara, and reported attacks on other neighboring Palestinian villages. He estimated that about 400 Jewish settlers participated in the attack.

He said, ‘I have never seen such an attack.

Israeli security forces failed to quell the violence for hours, despite prior warnings of a planned protest in the Palestinian city. The soldiers were also busy searching for the gunman who killed the Israeli brothers.

In one video, a crowd of Jewish settlers stood in prayer and looked at a building engulfed in flames.

Hebrew-language media reports stated that eight settlers had been detained for rioting, although some reports suggested that six of them had already been released. The arrest has not been confirmed by the police.

riots condemned the United States, the European Union and the United Kingdom, among others, as well as by many Israelis.

A Palestinian man walks past burning cars in the town of Huwara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, in February, 2023. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned “terrorist acts committed by settlers under the protection of the occupation forces” on Sunday night.

“We hold the Israeli government fully responsible,” he said, claiming that the settlers had taken cues from “the positions of some ministers in this extreme right-wing Israeli government.”

On Monday morning, 14 local settler leaders published a joint call to residents to “calm the spirits”, urging them to “conquer the IDF and not take the law into their own hands”.

Netanyahu issued a statement on Sunday night calling on those seeking to avenge the earlier terrorist attack not to resort to vigilantism.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu discusses Hawara terror attack, February 26, 2023 (Screenshot/PMO)

“I’m asking, while the blood boils and the winds howl – don’t take the law into your hands,” he said. “I ask that you allow the IDF and security forces to do their jobs.”

President Isaac Herzog issued similar remarks. “Taking the law into our own hands, rioting and violence against innocent people – this is not our way, and I express my strong condemnation,” he said in a statement.

Ahmed Tibi, head of the Taal party, shared a photo of the burning fire, labeling it “Kristallnacht in Huwara”, and others also referred to the bloody riot as a massacre.

MK Ofer Kassif of the allied Hadash party wrote that the violence was the work of “settler terror militias” operating under the protection of the “occupation regime” to commit “war crimes”.

Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have been high over the past year, with the IDF conducting overnight raids in the West Bank amid a series of deadly Palestinian terrorist attacks.

Israeli security forces secure the scene of a shooting attack in Huwara, in the West Bank, near Nablus on February 26, 2023. (Nasser Ishtayeh / Flash90)

Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem in recent weeks have killed 11 people and seriously injured many more.

More than 60 Palestinians have been killed since the beginning of the year, most of them in carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, but some were unrelated civilians and others died under circumstances that are under investigation. Has been

There has also been a significant increase in settler attacks against Palestinians in response to recent terrorist attacks. On Saturday, Israelis set fire to several Palestinian-owned cars in the village of Targetnear Nablus.

Sunday’s terror attack came as Israeli and Palestinian officials, including al-Sheikh, sat down in Jordan for a US-sponsored meeting on restoring peace in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The parties issued a joint communiqué in which Israel committed to temporarily freeze further “unilateral measures” for the next three to six months. Netanyahu and other members of the government quickly denied that Jerusalem had agreed to halt any settlement construction.

Jacob Magid, Emanuel Fabian, AP and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.