Jerusalem, March 1. Jewish settlers carried out a “pogrom” on Sunday by carrying out a massive attack on several Palestinian towns in the occupied West Bank, the commander-in-chief of the Israeli army’s central command, Yehuda Fuchs, acknowledged in a statement on Wednesday. It was a “shameful incident” that Israeli troops failed to contain.
Nearly 400 Jewish settlers armed with knives, sticks, stones and even firearms attacked Palestinian towns of Huwara, Burin, Zatara, Odala and Asira al-Qabaliyya on Sunday, killing one Palestinian, injuring more than 300 and extensive property damage with at least 75 houses and more than a hundred cars burned.
It is “a pogrom perpetrated by bandits,” Yehuda Fuchs, an Israeli soldier commanding troops in the occupied West Bank, said in the note.
“We did not prepare for this number of people and the way they arrived, the scale and intensity of the violence they showed and the organization they carried out. C This is a serious incident that should not have happened and that I should have been avoided,” he added.
For Fuchs, it was “a shameful incident” of Jewish settlers “who did not act with the values of the State of Israel or those of Judaism.”
The attacks by the Jewish settlers were carried out in retaliation for the killing a few hours earlier of two of their members by a Palestinian on a road near Huwara, for which the Israeli forces remained concentrated in this area, despite the fact that they knew that Mass calls for violence in Palestinian cities were circulating on social media, an army official said earlier.
“I don’t think collective punishment helps the war on terror, quite the contrary,” Fuchs said.
De los cientos de colonos que atacaron a las populations palestinas, fueron detenidos 14, de los cuales cinco fueron puestos en libertad, tres se encuentran en arresto domiciliario y otros seis -entre ellos dos menores- están siendo interrogados, dijo a Efe una fuente de the police.
On the other hand, the Jewish settlers also attacked the Israeli soldiers deployed in the region, according to the denunciation of the army, which decided to reinforce its troops with two battalions.
Expressing its shock, the international community has called on the parties to report on these events in the West Bank, which come amid a serious upsurge in violence.
Attacks by settlers and attacks by Palestinians, in addition to the intense, often violent raids that the Israeli army has carried out regularly in the West Bank for the past year, have fueled the escalation.
So far, 2023 marks the start of the most violent year in 23 years in the occupied West Bank, with 63 Palestinians killed and 14 on the Israeli side. EFE
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