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LAST UPDATE | 27 Feb 2023
PALESTINIANS IN THE occupied West Bank have counted the cost of deadly violence and arson by Israeli settlers targeting a town where two Israeli brothers were killed.
The surge in violence continued last night when gunfire killed an Israeli-American man near Jericho, an attack the army blamed on suspected Palestinian attackers.
Dozens of Israeli settlers set homes and cars ablaze in the northern town of Huwara overnight, after a day of Israeli-Palestinian talks in neighbouring Jordan aimed at quelling escalating unrest in the Palestinian territory.
More than 350 Palestinians were injured, most suffering from tear gas inhalation, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society said.
The Palestinian health ministry said Sameh Aqtash, 37, was shot dead during an attack by settlers on the nearby village of Zaatara.
The violence came hours after two Israeli settlers – brothers Yagel Yaniv, 20, and Hallel Yaniv, 22 – were shot dead as they drove through Huwara.
Today, an AFP photographer saw damaged homes blackened by fire, long lines of charred cars, burned trees and smashed windows in the town.
Wajeh Odeh, a member of the town’s council, said 30 houses were burned and damaged, with more than 100 cars torched.
An Israeli military official said 300 to 400 people went to the area for “revenge” and described the violence as “actions of terror”.
“(We are) trying to de-escalate and keep the two sides apart in this very, very hard situation that we are in,” the official told journalists.
A police spokesman told AFP that eight Israelis were detained over last night’s events, with most of them released.
Abdel Moneim Aqtash said he and his brother were standing outside a blacksmith’s workshop when Israeli settlers attacked them.
“They left the area and then came back with the occupation (Israeli) army … The army shot my brother, not the settlers,” he told AFP.
The military told AFP that Aqtash “was not shot by an Israeli soldier”.
Yoav Gallant, defence minister in Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing coalition government, said he expected “difficult days ahead” and had ordered troops to be reinforced.
“With this being said, I call on everyone to restore calm … We cannot allow a situation in which citizens take the law into their (own) hands,” he said.
The search for the gunmen who fired on the two brothers continued, the military official said.
Later today, soldiers set up road blocks and checkpoints in pursuit of the suspected Palestinian “terrorists” who opened fire on the motorist near Jericho, the army said.
Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem pronounced the 27-year-old man dead.
The army said he was an Israeli, and US ambassador to Israel Tom Nides confirmed the man was also a US citizen.
State Department spokesman Ned Price condemned the killing of the motorist as well as the brothers and the “widescale indiscriminate violence by settlers against Palestinian civilians following the killings”.
In Burin, close to Huwara, village council head Ibrahim Omran said residents experienced “a real battlefield”.
“Even the sheep were not spared from the brutality of the extremist settlers,” he told AFP, explaining that two sheep were stabbed to death, while homes, cars and a school room were set ablaze.
The West Bank is home to about 2.9 million Palestinians as well as an estimated 475,000 Jewish settlers, who live in state-approved settlements considered illegal under international law.
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and an extreme-right settler who lives near Nablus, was among hundreds attending the Yaniv brothers’ funeral in Jerusalem.
“We will continue to build on our land, new neighbourhoods and communities,” he said, referring to West Bank settlements.
Rabbi Shmuel Yaniv, the grandfather of the slain brothers, stressed that “even when confronted with evil,” one must remember that “we were all created in God’s image”.
The coffins were draped in the Israeli flag and cries of mourners drowned out a rabbi reciting prayers, an AFP correspondent said.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas’s office accused Israel of “protecting terrorist acts perpetrated by settlers” in the West Bank.
Hamas, the militant group which rules the Gaza Strip, called on Palestinians “to defend the city of Nablus”.
The Huwara attack amounted to “a pogrom”, Israeli rights groups BTselem and Peace Now said.
Yesterday’s violence came the same day as talks in Jordan where Israeli and Palestinian officials reaffirmed “the need to commit to de-escalation on the ground”.
Tor Wennesland, the United Nations Middle East peace envoy, said today he was “gravely concerned by the deteriorating security situation” in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.
Since the start of this year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 63 Palestinian adults and children, including militants and civilians.
13 Israeli adults and children, including members of the security forces and civilians, and one Ukrainian civilian have been killed over the same period, according to an AFP tally based on official sources from both sides.
The violence follows the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank since at least 2005.
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Israeli settlers? In the same way we have Russian settlers in Ukraine currently? Stop using the language of propaganda
@TheCraftyCulchie: Settler is surely the most accurate term no? They themselves would probably not like that term as they don’t view where they live as a settlement or occupied land (not saying I agree with their view). BTW the Russian Ukranian conflict is very different. Ukrainians have historically never threatened or tried to invade Russia as far I’m aware.
@TheCraftyCulchie: The comparison with Ukraine-Russia is not at all appropriate and misleads people away from the root cause of the conflict.
Ukrainians and Russian linguistically, culturally and religiously overlap, and this is at the heart of the conflict.
Russia has an inability to accept that Ukraine has developed an independent national identity and wants to chart its own course as an independent sovereign nation. The war is the process of Ukraine getting divorced from Russia. Russia argues Ukraine is not different or distinct enough to be independent, Ukraine disagrees. Russia wants Ukraine to remain within it historical sphere of influence, and use it as a buffer against the West.
It’s interesting to listen to old Russian people when asked, “why Russians protect the motherland in another country?”
Almost no one accepts that Russia is fighting abroad, Ukraine is Russia.
This stems from ancient history, not the Soviet Union. Russians, Belorussians and Ukrainians were one people c. 1500 years ago and Kyiv was their capital. Over the centuries their culture and languages diverged, so distinct nationalities emerged, particularly in the 1920-30s when early Soviet promoted regionalism. However, Russia under Putin effectively treats Ukraine a quasi-region of Russia populated by people who should not be Ukrainian, but a united “triune people comprising Velikorussians, Malorussians and Belorussians”.
“This Soviet national policy secured at the state level the provision on three separate Slavic peoples: Russian, Ukrainian and Belorussian, instead of the large Russian nation, a triune people comprising Velikorussians, Malorussians and Belorussians.” – Vladmir Putin
@David Jordan: 20% of what you say is true, but the rest is the view of Russian liberals. Ukraine had a distinct identity for centuries while defending agains Turks, Tatars, Poland and Russia. At that time they had a democratic system called Hetmanat, where a hetman was elected as a leader. One of those hetmans, Bogdan Hmelnitskiy signed the Pereyaslav treaty with Russia with codependency in defence at its core. However over decades through corruption and threats Russia was able to control what Hetman is elected and soon after slowly took over Ukraine claiming it as its territory. Then a multitude of assimilation projects started with Ukrainians being deported to far east and Taiga of Russian empire, being replaced by Russian + penalties on non adoption of Russian language and culture.
Occupiers, not settlers.
It’s funny how Israel does not demolish the homes of the Israeli’s who are involved in these killings…..
Sanction Israel like you do North Korea or Russia.
How many Israeli settlers were shot by Israeli troops during the rampage.
Answer 0.
Religion is a scourge on humanity
The Israeli people have a right to be there and a right to live their lives without the threat of violence against them
@Aidy McBride: so do the Palestinians but don’t let your one sided rant get sidetracked
@Aidy McBride: Warning…Genius at work!!!
For almost 60 years since The 6 Day War of 1967 Israel has been illegally colonising the captured Palestinian territory of that war. The West ( USA, EU and UK) turn a blind eye to this for 2 reasons..1. Feelings of guilt for having allowed or participated in The Holocaust.
2. Israel as a regional military superpower and an ally of The West protects vital oil supplies in a very unstable part of the world.
Things look very bad for the Palestinians who have only themselves to depend on if they are not to meet the same bitter end of other native peoples who were colonised.
As we in Ireland have Unionist settlers in Northern Ireland.
have your say