Israel cracks down on rampaging settlers but Palestinians say it is ‘not enough’

Special Israel cracks down on rampaging settlers but Palestinians say it is ‘not enough’
Palestinian PM Mohammad Shtayyeh surveys the damage after a rampage by settlers in Huwara, near the West Bank city of Nablus, Wednesday, March 1, 2023. (AP Photo)
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Updated 02 March 2023

Israel cracks down on rampaging settlers but Palestinians say it is ‘not enough’

Israel cracks down on rampaging settlers but Palestinians say it is ‘not enough’
  • Palestinian PM Mohammad Shtayyeh sees "an organized crime perpetrated by the Israeli government and carried out by the settlers’
  • Israeli general denounced the settler riots as a pogrom 'carried out by outlaws'

RAMALLAH: Israeli police finally arrested 10 people on Wednesday in connection with a deadly rampage by settlers through a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank.

The arrests came after three days of inaction following Monday’s incident in Hawara, when one Palestinian died as hundreds of settlers torched cars and homes, and amid unprecedented criticism by the senior Israeli military chief in the area.

Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, head of the Israeli army’s Central Command, said his forces had prepared for the possibility of a settler attack but had been surprised by the intensity of the violence.

Fuchs said the rampage was a “shameful” incident carried out by lawbreakers who “acted not according to the values I grew up with or the values of the state of Israel, and not according to the values of Judaism.”




A view of cars burnt in an attack by Israeli settlers, following an incident where a Palestinian gunman killed two Israeli settlers, near Hawara in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Feb. 27, 2023. (Reuters)

“The incident in Hawara was a pogrom carried out by outlaws,” he said. “We were not prepared for a pogrom of this magnitude, with many dozens of people.” 

Pogrom is a word that describes an organized act of mass violence targeting a particular ethnic or religious group. The term had been used to refer to ethnic mob attacks against Jews in eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Fuchs said: “We are currently in a period without security coordination with the Palestinian Authority. We will see what happens in the coming days.”

Shops in Hawara remained closed on Wednesday, by order of the army, amid a heavy Israeli military presence.

On a visit to the town, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh said the arrests were not enough. “We see an organized crime perpetrated by the Israeli government and carried out by the settlers,” he said.


ALSO READ: Why West Bank violence between Israelis and Palestinians rages on despite US mediation


Hawara’s mayor, Mueen Al-Dumaidi, told Arab News that Shtayyeh had visited to take stock of the situation and assess the damage. People who lost property in the settler attacks are demanding compensation from the Palestinian Authority, including new homes. Shtayyeh has formed a committee to assess the losses and promised the government would help people to the full extent of its capabilities.

“There are 52 families whose homes were completely burned down, 40 cars were torched, in addition to the destruction of the municipality’s property, two trucks and a bulldozer,” Al-Dumaidi said.

He said the Israeli army had divided the town into five security zones and banned residents from moving between them. Troops were deployed on rooftops along the main street to prevent clashes between Palestinians and settlers.

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People were gripped by fear and panic, Al-Dumaidi said, and settlers had tried to attack a house on Wednesday. “Now, after the world has condemned the Israeli army’s failure to prevent settlers from attacking the Palestinians, the Israelis admit their mistake,” he said.

He described the situation in Huwara as “terrible,” saying the Israeli army has divided it into five security zones and forbidden residents from moving between them. Troops are deployed on rooftops along the main street through the town to prevent any friction or clashes between residents and settlers.

Palestinians have formed protection committees in Huwara who stay awake all night to protect homes and town property from further attacks. Al-Dumaidi said the job of committee members is to warn residents of any attack, not to engage in a fight.

Meanwhile, Palestinian and Israeli sources have expressed fears that violence will again flare in the West Bank before the start of the holy month of Ramadan, which begins in about three weeks.




An aerial view shows a building and cars burnt in an attack by Israeli settlers near the Palestinian town of Hawara in the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Feb. 27, 2023. (REUTERS)

Amer Hamdan, a human rights activist from Nablus, told Arab News that he has noticed an apparent change in the behavior of the Israeli army toward Palestinians since the new right-wing Israeli government came to power in late December. The soldiers, he said, tolerate attacks by settlers against the Palestinians.

“If the army had the intention to act, it would move quickly and deal firmly with the settlers before they could carry out their arson attacks,” he added.

Hamdan said he has avoided traveling to Ramallah since the latest settler attacks for fear of being targeted by settlers, or soldiers at the military checkpoints that are dotted along the road.

“I do not want to be the next martyr,” he added.

In another development, Israeli forces raided the Humsa Bedouin community in Tubas Governorate in the northern Jordan Valley and demolished homes, according to Moataz Bisharat, who is in charge of the area.

Hussein Al-Shaikh, the Palestine Liberation Organization’s executive committee chief, said draft legislation on the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners found guilty of terrorism, which is passing through the Israeli Knesset, reflects an approach steeped in “racism and colonial thought.” The government-backed law passed its preliminary reading in the Israeli parliament on Wednesday.

Al-Shaikh said the party that should be tried for its crimes is the occupation, not the people suffering under the occupiers and their oppression.

Public Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s ultranationalist Jewish Power faction has promoted the death sentence bill as a means of deterring would-be Palestinian attackers after a more than year-long surge in violence that shows no signs of abating.

Critics say the death penalty is immoral, antithetical to Jewish principles, and will not serve as a deterrent.

The proposed law would allow the death penalty for a person who killed an Israeli “as an act motivated by racism or hostility toward the public” and “with the aim of harming the state of Israel and the revival of the Jewish people in its land.”

Limor Son Har-Melech, the ultranationalist settler lawmaker proposing the bill, told Kan public radio that “it is just and most moral that someone who murders Jews, and just because they’re Jews” is sentenced to death.

The bill passed by a vote of 55-9 in a preliminary reading. Most of the opposition, along with some of Netanyahu’s ultra-Orthodox allies, were not present for the vote.

(With AP)

Decoder

Pogrom

It is a word that describes an organized act of mass violence targeting a particular ethnic or religious group. The term had been used to refer to ethnic mob attacks against Jews in eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. On March 1, 2023, Maj. Gen. Yehuda Fuchs, head of the Israeli army’s Central Command, described the Feb. 28, 2023, rampage by Jewish settlers in the Palestinian town of Hawara as a "pogrom carried out by outlaws."


UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories

UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories
Updated 26 March 2023

UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories

UAE slams Israeli decision to permit new settlements in Occupied Territories
  • Gulf state reaffirms rejection of violations of international law, threats to regional stability

DUBAI: The UAE has strongly condemned Israel’s decision to allow resettlement in northern West Bank areas, and to permit new settlement units in the Occupied Territories, the Emirates News Agency reported on Sunday.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation reaffirmed the UAE’s rejection of all practices that violate international law and threaten to aggravate regional escalation and instability. 

The ministry also emphasized the importance of supporting all regional and international efforts to advance the Middle East peace process, as well as ending illegal practices that jeopardize the two-state solution, and establishing an independent Palestinian state on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.

 


Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman
Updated 26 March 2023

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman

Iraq’s Kurdistan region to hold elections on Nov. 18 — spokesman
  • The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions

SULAIMANIYA: Elections will be held in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on Nov. 18, the regional government spokesman said on Sunday.
Iraqi Kurdistan President Nechirvan Barzani issued a decree on Sunday and approved the date, KRG spokesman Dilshad Shahab told a news conference.
The vote should elect both a parliament and a president for Kurdish regions which have gained self-rule in 1991.


GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments

GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments
Updated 26 March 2023

GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments

GCC appeals to US over Israeli minister’s Palestinian comments
  • The US State Department said they had found Smotrich’s comments “innacurate, dangerous”

LONDON: The Gulf Cooperation Council said on Sunday it had written to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemning controversial comments made by Israel’s finance minister in which he denied the existence of a Palestinian people.

Secretary General Jassem Mohamed Albudaiwi said that the foreign ministers of the GCC had sent the joint letter, which embodied the position of the leaders of the GCC countries regarding the Palestinian cause, Saudi Press Agency reported.

In the letter, the GCC called on Washington “to assume its responsibilities in responding to all measures and statements that target the Palestinian people,” and also called on the US “to play its role in reaching a just, comprehensive and lasting solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

He added that the letter praised the American position which rejected the statements made by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Albudaiwi said the 155th session of the GCC Ministerial Council, which was held on March 22 and met in Riyadh, stressed the GCC's support for the sovereignty of the Palestinian people over all Palestinian lands occupied since June 1967, the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital, that guarantees all the legitimate rights of the brotherly Palestinian people, and rejects settlements in the occupied Palestinian lands.

The US State Department said they had found Smotrich’s comments “to not only be inaccurate but also deeply concerning and dangerous.”

Smotrich is part of veteran Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government that took office in December.

* With AFP


Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize
Updated 26 March 2023

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize

Tunisia recovers 29 bodies after migrant vessels capsize
  • Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people

TUNIS: Tunisia’s coast guard said Sunday the bodies of 29 migrants from sub-Saharan African countries had been recovered after three vessels capsized, the latest in a string of such tragedies.
A series of shipwrecks has left dozens of migrants dead and others missing in the country that serves as a key conduit for migrants seeking to reach nearby European shores.
It comes after President Kais Saied made an incendiary speech last month, accusing sub-Saharan Africans of representing a demographic threat and causing a crime wave in Tunisia.
The coast guard said in a statement Sunday that it had “rescued 11 illegal migrants of various African nationalities after their boats sank” off the central eastern coast, citing three separate sinkings.
In one, a Tunisian fishing trawler recovered 19 bodies 58 kilometers (36 miles) off the coast after their boat capsized.
A coast guard patrol off the coastal city of Mahdiya also recovered eight bodies and “rescued” 11 other migrants after their boat sank as it headed toward Italy.
Fishing trawlers in Sfax meanwhile recovered two other bodies.
Black migrants in the country have faced a spike in violence since Saied’s speech and hundreds have been living in the streets for weeks in increasingly desperate conditions.
People fleeing poverty and violence in Sudan’s Darfur region, West Africa and other parts of the continent have for years used Tunisia as a springboard for often perilous attempts to reach safety and better lives in Europe.


The Italian island of Lampedusa is just 150 kilometers (90 miles) off the Tunisian coast, part of the Central Mediterranean route described by the United Nations as the most deadly in the world.
Rome has pressured Tunisian authorities to rein in the flow of people, and has helped beef up the coast guard, which rights groups accuse of violence.
Italy’s hard-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned Friday that Tunisia’s “serious financial problems” risked sparking a “migratory wave” toward Europe.
She also confirmed plans for a mission to the North African country involving the Italian and French foreign ministers.
Meloni echoed comments earlier in the week by Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, who warned Tunisia risks economic collapse that could trigger a new flow of migrants to Europe — fears Tunis has since dismissed.
Since Saied’s speech, hundreds of migrants have been repatriated in flights organized by their embassies, but many say they fear going home and have called on the UN to organize evacuation flights to safe third countries.
Tunisia is in the throes of a long-running socio-economic crisis, with spiralling inflation and persistently high joblessness, and Tunisians themselves make up a large proportion of the migrants traveling to Italian shores.
The heavily indebted North African country is in negotiations with the International Monetary Fund for a $2-billion bailout package, but the talks have been stalled for months and there is no sign a deal is any closer.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Wednesday that unless they reach an agreement, “the economy risks falling off the deep end.”


Israeli group asks court to punish Netanyahu over legal plan

Israeli group asks court to punish Netanyahu over legal plan
Updated 26 March 2023

Israeli group asks court to punish Netanyahu over legal plan

Israeli group asks court to punish Netanyahu over legal plan

TEL AVIV: An Israeli good governance group on Sunday asked the country’s Supreme Court to punish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for allegedly violating a conflict of interest agreement meant to prevent him from dealing with the country’s judiciary while he is on trial for corruption.
The request by the Movement for Quality Government in Israel intensifies a brewing showdown between Netanyahu’s government and the judiciary, which it is trying to overhaul in a contentious plan that has sparked widespread opposition.
The Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a fierce opponent of the overhaul, asked the court to force Netanyahu to obey the law and sanction him either with a fine or prison time for not doing so, saying he was not above the law.
“A prime minister who doesn’t obey the court and the provisions of the law is privileged and an anarchist,” said Eliad Shraga, the head of the group, echoing language used by Netanyahu and his allies against protesting opponents of the overhaul. “The prime minister will be forced to bow his head before the law and comply with the provisions of the law.”
Netanyahu is barred by the country’s attorney general from dealing with his government’s plan to overhaul the judiciary, based on a conflict of interest agreement he is bound to, and which the Supreme Court acknowledged in a ruling over Netanyahu’s fitness to serve while on trial for corruption.
But on Thursday, after parliament passed a law making it harder to remove a sitting prime minister, Netanyahu said he was unshackled by the attorney general’s decision and vowed to wade into the crisis and “mend the rift” in the nation. That declaration prompted the attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, to warn that Netanyahu was breaking his conflict of interest agreement by entering the fray.
The fast-paced legal and political developments have catapulted Israel into uncharted territory and to a burgeoning constitutional crisis, said Guy Lurie, a research fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank.
“We are at the start of a constitutional crisis in the sense that there is a disagreement over the source of authority and legitimacy of different governing bodies,” he said.
If Netanyahu continues to intervene in the overhaul as he promised, Baharav-Miara could launch an investigation into whether he violated the conflict of interest agreement, which could lead to additional charges against him, Lurie said. He added that the uncertainty of the events made him unsure of how they were likely to unfold.
It is also unclear how the court, which is at the center of the divide surrounding the overhaul, will treat the request to sanction Netanyahu.
Netanyahu is on trial for charges of fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate affairs involving wealthy associates and powerful media moguls. He denies wrongdoing and dismisses critics who say he will try to seek an escape route from the charges through the legal overhaul.
The overhaul will give the government control over who becomes a judge and limit judicial review over government decisions and legislation. Netanyahu and his allies say the plan will restore a balance between the judicial and executive branches and rein in what they see as an interventionist court with liberal sympathies.
Critics say the plan upends Israel’s fragile system of checks and balances and pushes Israel down a path toward autocracy.
The government has pledged to pass a key part of the overhaul this week before parliament takes a month recess, but pressure has been building on Netanyahu to suspend the plan.