‘The settlers in the West Bank see what's happening in Gaza, and are envious,' newspaper says in editorial
In an editorial on Wednesday, Israeli daily Haaretz accused the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of seeking to turn the occupied West Bank into rubble, as it did in Gaza.
Tension has been running high across the West Bank due to Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, which has killed almost 46,000 people, mostly women and children, since a Hamas attack on Oct. 7, 2023.
At least 844 Palestinians have since been killed and more than 6,700 injured by Israeli army fire in the occupied territory, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
“While most Israelis view October 7 as the greatest disaster in the country's history, some on the right see in it an opportunity, and even the beginning of the redemption,” Haaretz commented.
On Monday, Netanyahu approved a series of military actions in the West Bank, shortly after a shooting attack that killed three illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.
His Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also called for destroying the Palestinian cities of Jenin and Nablus in the West Bank as happened in Jabalia in northern Gaza, which was reduced to rubble amid a deadly Israeli offensive in the area.
Illegal settlers also attacked several Palestinian towns in the West Bank in retaliation for Monday's attack, torching cars and property in the occupied territory.
“The settlers in the West Bank see what's happening in Gaza, and are envious,” Haaretz said. “They demand the government and the army do there what they did in the Strip.”
Illegal settlers also called on Defense Minister Israel Katz, to launch destructive military operations in the West Bank.
"I call on the IDF (army) and the Israeli government to have a profound change of perception," said Ariel Mayor Yair Shtebon – that is, a massive military operation in the West Bank like the one in 2002, "that destroys the refugee camps in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), in Tulkarem, in Jenin, in Nablus and wherever there is a threat to residents of Israel."
Similar calls were echoed by members of Netanyahu's Likud Party as Avichay Buaron, who called in a radio interview Tuesday to "disarm" the Palestinian Authority "of its weapons and political capabilities."
Haaretz said illegal Israeli settlers mean by calling for “uprooting terrorism” to expel Palestinian residents and demolish homes and infrastructure.
“The goal (is) to impose Greater Israel apartheid in the occupied territories. If they succeed, they will put an end to any future possibility of a two-state solution and sustainable life in the region.”
In July 2024, the International Court of Justice declared Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian land illegal and demanded the evacuation of all existing settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
