EU, 14 countries urge Israel to halt ‘unprecedented violence’ by West Bank settlers
Call from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, EU, several other European countries — but not Germany or US — says Israel’s settlement policy ‘illegal under international law’
Western nations and the European Union Friday urged Israel to “take concrete steps to halt unprecedented violence by Israeli settlers” in the West Bank, in a joint statement published by France’s foreign ministry.
The call from Australia, Britain, Canada, France, the European Union and several other European countries — but notably excluding Germany and the United States — highlighted “an unprecedented number of attacks perpetrated by extremist settlers” since early October that they said had claimed eight Palestinian lives and wounded 83 people.
Reiterating that Israel’s settlement policy “is illegal under international law,” the signatories of Friday’s statement said that “as the occupying power, Israel must protect Palestinian civilians in the West Bank” and “bring those responsible for this violence to justice.”
Israel denies the settlements are illegal, saying that the West Bank, which it captured in 1967 from Jordan, is disputed territory.
Friday’s statement came days after EU chief Ursula von der Leyen backed imposing sanctions on “extremist” Israeli settlers — although not all of the bloc’s 27 nations agreed.
While some members such as Spain have sharply criticized Israel’s response to Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, others including Germany have stood firmly behind Jerusalem.
Violence in the West Bank has soared since October 7, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst into Israel from the land, air and sea in a shock assault in which they massacred more than 1,200 people and seized some 240 hostages, mostly civilians. Entire families were slaughtered in their homes and some 360 people were mowed down at an outdoor music festival.
In response to the deadliest massacre in the country’s history, Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas from the Gaza Strip, where the terror group has ruled since 2007.
Since the start of the war, an uptick in violent attacks against Palestinians in the West Bank has been noted by human rights groups in Israel and abroad.
On November 28, anti-West Bank settlement organization Yesh Din said it had recorded 225 incidents of Israeli civilian violence in 93 Palestinian communities in the West Bank since October 7.
According to activist groups such as B’tselem and Peace Now, as well as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), this wave of harassment has led hundreds of Palestinians in vulnerable rural communities to abandon their villages.
There have also been a number of deadly terror attacks against Israelis in the West Bank and Israel since October 7.
Israeli troops have arrested some 2,000 wanted Palestinians across the West Bank, including more than 1,100 affiliated with Hamas.
According to the Palestinian Authority health ministry, some 200 West Bank Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces, and in a few cases settlers.
Based on military estimates, the vast majority of the 200 Palestinians killed since October 7 were shot dead during clashes amid arrest raids. Around 60% of them, according to data seen by The Times of Israel, were armed with either a firearm or an explosive device.
The IDF has said that it is aware of at least three cases of uninvolved Palestinians being killed by troops in recent weeks, and a handful of cases of settlers killing Palestinians, which are still under investigation.
While the US did not join the call, last week the State Department said that it will impose travel bans on extremist Jewish settlers implicated in a rash of recent attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as on Palestinians involved in attacks on Israelis.
