DayofPal- The Israeli daily Haaretz has condemned Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, accusing it of aiming to transform the occupied West Bank into a landscape of ruin, mirroring the devastation unleashed on Gaza.
In a scathing editorial it published on Wednesday, Haaretz said while most Israelis view October 7 as the greatest disaster in Israel’s history, some on the right see in it an opportunity, and even the beginning of the redemption.
On Monday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized a wave of military operations in the West Bank, following a shooting operation that claimed the lives of three Israeli settlers in the occupied territory.
Meanwhile, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich fueled the flames, inciting for the destruction of Palestinian cities like Jenin and Nablus, echoing the devastation inflicted on Jabalia in northern Gaza—now a graveyard of rubble after Israel’s unrelenting assault.
Israeli setters’ attacks have soared across the West Bank, fueled by Israel’s relentless assault on Gaza—a campaign that has claimed nearly 46,000 lives in Gaza, predominantly women and children, since the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023.
Haaretz said that Israeli settlers in the West Bank see what’s happening in Gaza, and are envious, adding that 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 and destroy the infrastructure.
“I call on the 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 their homes and infrastructure under flimsy pretexts such as building without permits or building on archaeological sites.
“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.
On November 21, 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants against Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant for committing genocide in Gaza. So far in Gaza, 56,714 Palestinians have been killed and missing, including 17,818 children.
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