DUBAI: Israel’s political leadership is encouraging settler violence against Palestinians in West bank, senior Israeli army officials have warned, as efforts to calm tensions have been largely met with silence from influential figures in the settlement movement.
Security officials said there was “no civilian address” willing to help curb the violence, Israeli daily Haaretz has reported.
Israeli security officials warned that residents of Palestinian villages subjected to repeated attacks may soon stop showing restraint in the face of arson and violence.
“A confrontation that begins inside a Palestinian village quickly escalates into violence, gunfire and mass clashes,” a security source said.
“Palestinians have decided they will no longer stand by while their homes are being set on fire, as the State of Israel supports it and the army secures it. The concern is that they have decided to stop standing by.”
About 70 local Palestinian “protection committees,” modeled on civilian emergency response squads, have been established across the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority to protect residents from settler violence.
While the groups are unarmed, the IDF fears encounters between them and settlers or Israeli soldiers could further escalate tensions.
Israeli forces arrested dozens of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Saturday, after at least four Palestinians and two Israeli soldiers were killed in an earlier shootout when armed Israeli settlers approached a Palestinian village. Palestinian authorities in the West Bank said Friday’s shootings were provoked by the settlers who aimed to attack villagers in Tal, southwest of Nablus.
The IDF has stressed, in the Haaretz report, that every recent deadly incident involving Israelis and Palestinians in the West Bank began after settlers entered Palestinian villages and provoked confrontations.
Senior Israeli officials have urged Defense Minister Israel Katz to reconsider the use of detention without trial orders against leaders of violent settler attacks, which the security establishment considered a key tool for removing the organizers of settler violence from the area, Haaretz reported. The Israeli political leadership has yet to respond.
IDF officials have warned that reinforcing forces in the West Bank in response to the recent surge in violence could require another reserve call-up, to avoid undermining the military’s readiness for a possible campaign in Lebanon if tensions with Iran escalate.
