Israeli Finance Minister and Religious Zionist Party leader Bezalel Smotrich is now threatening to bomb the West Bank “into ruins like in the Gaza strip” – if the attacks on illegal Jewish settlements do not stop.
– Our message to the neighbors beyond the fence, in Tulkarm, Nur al-Shams, Shawika and Qalqilya: we will turn you into ruins like the Gaza Strip if the terror you are afflicting on the settlements continues, he declared this week.
– If, God forbid, a Palestinian state is established, what happened in the communities around Gaza on October 7 could also happen here. This will not come to be and will not happen, he continued.
Smotrich goes on to promise that Israel will “continue to control Judea and Samaria” – the biblical term for the occupied territories in the West Bank – and says the area serves as a “security belt” for cities and towns within the official borders of the state of Israel. He also argues that Palestinian violence against Israeli settlers in the West Bank could lead to the bombing of the West Bank as in Gaza.
"We will turn your cities into ruins like in the Gaza Strip."
Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, threatens Palestinians of Tulkarm in the occupied West Bank, pledging a fate akin to that of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/NWwOT5sk7p
— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) May 30, 2024
Hundreds killed
While Israel’s bombing campaign has primarily affected the Gaza Strip, killing tens of thousands and displacing most of the population, the situation in the West Bank has also become increasingly difficult.
Israeli forces have increased the number of raids in many cities in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, and have clashed with Palestinian militants during these raids.
According to the authorities, at least 519 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 5,000 injured in the West Bank since October 7, and the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem accuses Israel of “working to drive Palestinian herders from their homes” – combining Israel’s “official methods” with “organized settler violence”.
