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January 8, 2025 | 07:30 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - In its editorial on Wednesday, January 8, 2025, the Israeli daily Haaretz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government of trying to turn the occupied West Bank into rubble, as happened in Gaza.
Tensions are high in the West Bank due to Israel's genocide in Gaza, which has killed nearly 46,000 people, mostly Palestinian women and children, since the Hamas offensive on October 7, 2023.
At least 844 Palestinians have been killed and more than 6,700 injured by Israeli army gunfire in the occupied West Bank, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
"While most Israelis view October 7 as the greatest disaster in the history of their country, some on the right see it as an opportunity, and even the beginning of redemption," Haaretz commented as quoted by Anadolu.
On Monday, Netanyahu approved a series of military actions in the West Bank, shortly after the shooting that killed three illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territories.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also called for the destruction of the West Bank cities of Jenin and Nablus as happened in Jabalia in northern Gaza, which was reduced to rubble amid a deadly Israeli offensive in the area.
Settlers also attacked several Palestinian towns in the West Bank in retaliation for Monday’s attack, burning cars and property of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
“The settlers in the West Bank see what is happening in Gaza, and feel jealous,” Haaretz said. “They demand that the government and the army do what they did in the Gaza Strip.”
The settlers also called on Defense Minister Israel Katz, to launch a destructive military operation in the West Bank.
“I call on the IDF (army) and the Israeli government to make a profound change in perception,” said Mayor Ariel Yair Shtebon – namely a major military operation in the West Bank like the one in 2002, “which destroyed refugee camps in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), in Tulkarm, in Jenin, in Nablus and wherever there is a threat to the Israeli population.”
Similar calls were echoed by members of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, such as Avichay Buaron, who in a radio interview on Tuesday called for “stripping” the Palestinian Authority “of its weapons and political capabilities.”
Haaretz said the Israeli settlers are seeking to “uproot terrorism” by displacing Palestinian residents and destroying homes and infrastructure.
“Their goal is to impose a Greater Israeli apartheid on the occupied territories. If they succeed, they will end any possibility of a two-state solution and a sustainable future life in the region.”
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICC) declared Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
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