US calls Israeli settler attack ’terrorism’
Washington has condemned as terrorism the killing of a Palestinian by Israeli settlers, in sharpened language that appeared to reflect US frustration with surging violence in the occupied West Bank under Israel’s hard-right cabinet.
Israeli police detained two settlers in Friday’s incident near Burqa village. According to Palestinians, they were part of a group that threw rocks, torched cars and, when confronted by villagers, shot a 19-year-old dead and wounded several others, according to Reuters. “We strongly condemn yesterday’s terror attack by Israeli extremist settlers that killed a 19-year old Palestinian,” the US State Department said in a statement late on Saturday, urging “full accountability and justice”.
According to Israel’s Army Radio, the rate of attacks by settlers or their supporters against Palestinians in the West Bank has more than doubled this year compared to 2022.
“We are faced with the evolution of a dangerous Jewish nationalist terrorism,” opposition lawmaker Benny Gantz, a former defense minister, said on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter. “Whatever happened at Burqa, it joins a slew of events that beset our security forces with having to pursue, rather than protect, Israelis.”
A new report by the Palestinian Wall and Settlements Resistance Commission said Israeli forces and settlers perpetrated nearly 900 attacks on Palestinians and their holy sites last month, Press TV wrote.
The Israeli attacks ranged from direct assaults on Palestinian people, vandalism of property, razing lands, storming villages, uprooting trees and seizing property.
The commission further noted that most of the 897 attacks were carried out in the occupied Al-Quds with 148 cases, followed by Nablus with 140 and Al-Khalil with 113 attacks, the Palestinian WAFA news agency reported on Sunday. The commission also pointed out that Israeli settlers conducted 202 attacks in various parts of the occupied West Bank, but mainly in Nablus, Ramallah and Ramallah.
The monthly report goes on to underline that 139 orders for demolition, stop construction, and evacuation of Palestinian facilities were issued by the Israeli regime in July, describing them as “a record rise that warns of many more demolitions in the next period.”
The occupation forces demolished 41 homes and commercial structures, mainly in Al-Khalil and Al-Quds, the commission said, adding that Israeli forces and Zionist settlers also vandalized a total of 2,552 trees by cutting and uprooting them, mainly in Nablus.