Hamas urges escalation, demands Muslim states cut ties with Israel over West Bank overhaul

Hamas urges Palestinians to “intensify the confrontation” in the West Bank and Jerusalem, and demands Arab and Muslim nations cut ties with Israel in response to the security cabinet’s decision to increase Israeli authority in the West Bank and remove barriers to Jewish land purchases there.

In a statement, the terror group calls the measures adopted today part of Israel’s “fascist settler-colonial approach.”

“We demand the Arab and Islamic states… bear their historical responsibility in confronting the occupation [Israel] and its plans aimed at imposing the annexation of the West Bank as a fait accompli,” Hamas says.

It also calls for those countries to “strengthen a unified Arab and Islamic position” and “take practical and serious steps, foremost among them cutting relations with the Zionist entity and expelling its ambassadors from capitals that have established relations with it.”

In addition, Hamas calls on “Palestinians and their rebellious youth throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem to intensify the confrontation with the occupation and its settlers by all available means, to thwart the projects of annexation, Judaization and forced displacement.”

Hamas regularly uses the word “settlers” to refer to Jews in both Israel and the West Bank.