Dozens of Israeli settlers rioted in Palestinian areas on Sunday evening, torching cars as well as Palestinian homes, in apparent revenge for an attack earlier in the day in which two Israeli brothers were killed by a Palestinian terrorist.
The violence, deemed the worst ever outbreak from Israeli residents of the West Bank, was broadly condemned by senior officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog and was termed a “terror attack” by military officials.
Arab-Israeli lawmaker Ahmed Tibi, who has a history of justifying Palestinian terror attacks, came under fire for comparing it to Kristallnacht, the wave of Nazi pogroms in 1938 viewed as a precursor to the Holocaust.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said about a hundred Palestinians had been hurt in the clashes in the Arab village of Huwara, and one was killed.
Mourners take part in the funeral of Israeli settlers, brothers Yagel Yaniv, 20, and Hallel Yaniv, 22, at the military cemetery in Jerusalem on February 27, 2023, a day after they were shot dead as they drove through Huwara town in the West Bank. ( GIL COHEN-MAGEN/AFP via Getty Images)
Earlier on Sunday, a terrorist opened fire near Huwara at close range on a car carrying Hillel Menachem Yaniv, 22, and his brother Yagel Yaakov, 19, before fleeing the scene. The car was found riddled with bullet holes from a makeshift submachine gun popular with Palestinians. The Yaniv brothers were buried at a military cemetery in Jerusalem Monday, in a funeral that drew thousands of mourners, including ten ministers and Knesset members.
The attack was the latest in a wave of terror that has claimed the lives of dozens of Israelis in recent months. The last month alone saw 11 Israelis murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
Later on Sunday, and prior to the settler riots, Palestinian children were filmed handing out dates in celebration of the attack.
Israeli experts warned that the rampage could amount to war crimes and added that tweets of far-right politicians ahead of it could make them culpable of war crimes.
In the hour before the clashes erupted, Deputy Head of the Samaria Council Davidi Ben Zion said the Palestinian “village of Huwara should be wiped out, this place is a nest of terror and the punishment should be for everyone.”
“The time has come for the State of Israel to restore the deterrence that we lost a long time ago. The blood of our children is spilled there on the road in Hvara and there is no room for mercy.”
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas condemned what he called “the terrorist acts carried out by settlers under the protection of the occupation forces tonight.”
“We hold the Israeli government fully responsible,” he added.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid said that the government had “lost control” over Israel’s security.
Former defense minister and opposition member Benny Gantz warns that Israel is facing “a security disaster,” and added that more extreme elements of the ruling coalition “fueling terrorism.”
Netanyahu called on the rioters to stop the violence. “I ask even when the blood is hot and the spirits are hot – not to take the law into your own hands. I ask to let the IDF and the security forces do their job.”
Journalists flee from stun grenades thrown by the Israeli army in the town of Huwara in the occupied West Bank on February 27, 2023. (RONALDO SCHEMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
Herzog also condemned the rioters.
“Taking the law into our own hands, riots and violence against innocent people – are not our way and I strongly condemn it. We must allow the IDF, the Israel Police and the security forces to capture the despicable terrorist and restore order immediately.”
MK Zvika Fogel, of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, told Army Radio on Monday morning that the riots created “the strongest deterrent the State of Israel has had since Defensive Shield,” referring to the 2002 army counterterror operation that helped calm Palestinian terrorism during the Second Intifada.
Fogel later attempted to walk back the comments, saying, “I said the state is the one that should act to deter the terrorists, definitely not civilians. We mustn’t arrive at a situation in which civilians take the law into their own hands. The job of the government and the IDF is to supply the necessary protection — by offensiveness and determination, not restraint.”
An IDF official said on Monday that IDF forces had been deployed in a double manhunt – for the terrorist who killed the brothers Yaniv and the person who shot and killed Palestinian man Sameh Aktash during the riots.
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