West Bank council head says Jit rioters not from his area: ‘I despise them’

Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council claims that extremists who rampaged through the West Bank Palestinian village of Jit on Thursday night were mostly not settlers from his area.

“We know that this is a WhatsApp group of fringe, violent youth, most of whom are not even from Samaria. I despise them like most of the country,” he tells Kan radio.

“I am in constant contact with the police, the IDF, and with the security establishment, and also with residents who called yesterday and requested I talk with the police because they felt torn apart by this violence,” he says.

“Residents of Samaria despise them. These are bored people with no connection to the youth that wake at 5 a.m. to herd sheep and protect the country,” he continues, warning rioters that they are not wanted in his area.