Calls at ICJ for unilateral West Bank withdrawal would lead to another October 7, says Israel

The Foreign Ministry issues a statement slamming the Palestinian Authority’s claims during a trial at the Hague over Israeli presence in the West Bank as “creating a fundamentally distorted reality,” and dismissing the hearing as a “media circus” with no value.

The PA is “hurling false accusations” in the trial, the ministry says, and “trying to turn a conflict that should be resolved through direct negotiations and without external impositions into a one-sided and improper legal process designed to adopt an extremist and distorted narrative.”

The ministry says the October 7 massacre last year was “shockingly” not mentioned at all in the hearing, and adds that those who call on the IDF to completely withdraw from all areas of the West Bank “without conditions and without negotiations are in fact calling for another massacre of Israeli citizens.”

The PA leadership has for years “rejected direct negotiations to resolve the conflict,” the ministry statement says, “while fostering incitement to terrorism, promoting antisemitism and providing financial incentives to terrorists who murder Jews,” adding that these issues were “hidden from the Court” during questioning.