Israeli President Isaac Herzog “strongly condemned” on Thursday evening an attack by Jewish settlers against a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank which left one dead and one seriously injured according to the Palestinian Authority, and described the violence as a “pogrom”.
“I strongly condemn tonight’s pogrom in Samaria,” Mr. Herzog wrote in a message on X, using the name of the biblical province corresponding to the northern West Bank.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the attack, which targeted the town of Jit, between the cities of Nablus and Qalqilya, left one dead, Mahmoud Abdel Qader Sadda, aged 23, who fell “under the bullets of settlers”. Another Palestinian was seriously injured by a shot to the chest, the ministry added.
“Armed settlers attacked the village of Jit, setting several vehicles on fire,” the official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Asked by AFP, a spokesperson for the Israeli army indicated that around 8 p.m. (5 p.m. GMT) “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked, [étaient] entered in […] Jit, [avaient] set fire to vehicles and infrastructure in the area, and threw stones and Molotov cocktails.”
Sent to the scene, soldiers and border police “evacuated Israeli civilians from the city,” the spokesman added, specifying that “an Israeli civilian who took part in the violent riot [avait] was arrested and transferred to the Israeli police for questioning.”
“This is an extremist minority that is damaging the law-abiding settler population, the settlement system as a whole, and [la réputation] of Israel in the world, during a particularly sensitive and difficult period,” writes Mr. Herzog.
“The police must act immediately against this serious phenomenon and bring the offenders to justice,” added the president, whose role is mainly ceremonial in Israel.
“Rioters”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “takes seriously the riots that took place this evening in the village of Jit,” his office said in a statement, assuring that “those responsible for any criminal acts will be arrested and prosecuted.”
Leader of Likud, the major party of the Israeli right, Mr. Netanyahu has governed since December 2022 with the support of far-right parties, advocating the extension of Israeli colonization in the occupied West Bank, and even the pure and simple annexation of the entirety of this Palestinian territory that Israel has occupied since 1967.
“Tonight’s rioters in Jit have nothing to do with colonization and settlers,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on X [extrême droite]the great architect of the expansion of Jewish colonization in the West Bank observed since December 2022 and especially since the start of the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip.
“These are criminals who must be dealt with by the authorities responsible for maintaining public order and with all the severity of the law,” he added.
The Israeli settlement enterprise in the West Bank is regularly denounced as a violation of international law by the UN, which sees it as one of the major obstacles to the establishment of a just and lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip, triggered by the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, violence has flared up in the West Bank.
At least 633 Palestinians have been killed there by the Israeli army or settlers, according to an AFP count based on official Palestinian data, and at least 18 Israelis including soldiers in Palestinian attacks.