(Jerusalem) Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich conceded on Saturday that he chose his words badly when he called for the “annihilation” of a Palestinian city after the murder of two Israelis, remarks that sparked an international outcry.
“It’s possible the word was badly chosen,” Bezalel Smotrich told Channel 12.
On February 26, two young Israeli settlers were shot and killed in their car in Houwara, near Nablus in the northern West Bank. Their murder was followed by attacks by Israeli settlers on the Palestinian town.
“I think that Houwara should be destroyed”, then declared Wednesday the Israeli Minister of Finance, at the head of a far-right party “Religious Zionism”, member of the coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He then retracted, specifying on Twitter that he “did not want to annihilate Houwara, but only to act in a targeted manner against the terrorists. »
On Friday, France denounced “unworthy” remarks.
“It was irresponsible, it was disgusting, it was disgusting,” US State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk described as “inconceivable” the remarks of Mr. Smotrich, a settler living near Nablus, who intervene while the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is experiencing a resurgence tension.
On Saturday, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the United Kingdom and Spain expressed “their deep concern at the continuation and intensification of violence in the occupied Palestinian territories”, in a press release common of their heads of diplomacy.