Surviving a Pogrom: Palestinian in Huwara Decries Israeli Settler Attack as "Ethnic Cleansing"
On Sunday, Israeli settlers ransacked and torched Palestinian homes in Huwara, near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, killing at least one Palestinian resident and injuring dozens of others. The Israeli human rights group B'Tselem has accused Benjamin Netanyahu's government of backing a pogrom in Huwara. Israeli Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday that Huwara needs to be "wiped out" and that the state of Israel should do it. In response, 22 Israeli international law experts sent a letter to Israel's attorney general demanding an immediate investigation against Smotrich for potential war crimes. U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price also condemned Smotrich's comments, though he framed the conflict as bilateral by referencing the need to condemn Palestinian "incitement to violence." Meanwhile, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, called on the U.S., as the Israeli government's most powerful international ally, to take action to stop its violence. For more on this latest escalation of the Israeli occupation, we're joined by Saddam Omar, a Huwara resident who witnessed the settler attacks, and Gideon Levy, an award-winning Israeli journalist and columnist for _Haaretz_.
= new reply since forum marked as read
who said that Huwara needs to be "wiped out" , see :
https://www.timesofisrael.com/police-to-probe-far-right-mk-for-remarks-backing-violent-west-bank-settler-rampage/
Police to probe far-right MK for remarks backing violent West Bank settler rampage
Investigation comes after Otzma Yehudit’s Zvika Fogel said ‘a closed, burnt Huwara – that’s what I want to see’ after deadly riot by extremists
Police on Wednesday looked set to launch an incitement investigation into coalition lawmaker Zvika Fogel for voicing support for rioters who earlier this week torched dozens of Palestinian vehicles as well as several homes in the northern West Bank.
Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and State Prosecutor Amit Aisman cleared police to launch the investigation of Fogel, head of the Knesset’s National Security Committee.
The Otzma Yehudit MK, a former Israel Defense Forces brigadier general, gave his unambiguous backing on Monday to the extremist settlers, saying: “A closed, burnt Huwara — that’s what I want to see.”
“That’s the only way to achieve deterrence. After a murder like yesterday’s, we need burning villages when the IDF doesn’t act,” Fogel told Galey Israel Radio.
Hours after a Palestinian shooting terror attack that killed brothers Hallel Yaniv, 21, and Yagel Yaniv, 19, from the settlement of Har Bracha, hundreds of settlers ran riot through Huwara and other nearby towns, leaving one Palestinian dead and several others badly injured, in what a top general labeled a “pogrom.” Six more suspects were arrested overnight Tuesday in connection with the incident.
In a statement, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, chair of Otzma Yehudit, slammed the attorney general for allowing the police investigation, claiming there was “one law for the right and one law for the left — clear proof for the necessity of the [judicial] reform.”.......