JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and a senior Palestinian official discussed violence in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, with Gallant’s office saying he offered reassurance about Israel’s intention to crack down on Jewish settler riots.
The phone call — rare for Israel’s religious-nationalist government — and its publication followed mounting expressions of US concern about the situation in the West Bank, among areas where Palestinians, with foreign backing, seek statehood.
A Hamas gun attack that killed four Israeli civilians outside a West Bank settlement sparked days of violent incursions into Palestinian villages and towns by groups of Jewish settlers. Twelve suspects have been arrested in the latter incidents, Israeli police said.
“Israel views with gravity the violence inflicted upon Palestinian civilians in recent days by extremist elements,” Gallant’s office quoted him as telling Hussein Al-Sheikh, an official in the umbrella Palestine Liberation Organization.
“Israel would exact full penalty of the law from the rioters,” Gallant added, according to the statement.
There was no immediate comment from Al-Sheikh’s office.
Israeli forces ,which intensified raids against suspected Palestinian militants over the last 15 months, would continue to operate “anywhere required,” Gallant said, while describing a calming of the West Bank as his common interest with Al-Sheikh.
Israeli, Palestinian ministers discuss West Bank violence
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Israeli, Palestinian ministers discuss West Bank violence
- A Hamas gun attack that killed four Israeli civilians outside a West Bank settlement sparked days of violent incursions into Palestinian villages
Iran says any US attack including limited strikes would be ‘act of aggression’
- Foreign ministry spokesman said any state would react to an act of aggression as part of its inherent right of self-defense
- Trump said Friday he was considering a limited strike if Tehran did not reach a deal with the US
TEHRAN: Iran said Monday that any US attack, including limited strikes, would be an “act of aggression” that would precipitate a response, after President Donald Trump said he was considering a limited strike on Iran.
“And with respect to your first question concerning the limited strike, I think there is no limited strike,” foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said at a briefing in Tehran attended by an AFP journalist.
“An act of aggression would be regarded as an act of aggression. Period. And any state would react to an act of aggression as part of its inherent right of self-defense ferociously so that’s what we would do.”
Trump said Friday he was considering a limited strike if Tehran did not reach a deal with the United States.
“I guess I can say I am considering that,” he replied following a question from reporters.
The two countries concluded a second round of indirect talks in Switzerland on Tuesday under Omani mediation, against the backdrop of a major US military build-up in the region.
Further talks, confirmed by Iran and Oman but not by the United States, are scheduled for Thursday.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi is leading the negotiations for Iran, while the United States is represented by envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Trump is wondering why Iran has not “capitulated” in the face of Washington’s military deployment, Witkoff said in an interview with Fox News broadcast on Sunday.
Baqaei responded Monday by saying that Iranians had never capitulated at any point in their history.
