Meretz chief: IDF soldiers must be restrained and ‘firm hand’ taken with settlers
Zahava Galon calls on Gantz to declare hilltop youth a terror organization; says far-right MK Ben Gvir willing ‘to pay the blood of Jews and Arabs’ for the sake of campaign photos
Meretz party head Zehava Galon called on Saturday for Defense Minister Benny Gantz to restrain soldiers in their treatment of Palestinians and said that a “firmer hand” needed to be taken with settlers.
“The defense minister needs to restrain and moderate the soldiers of the IDF,” the head of the left-wing party said at a cultural event in the central city of Petah Tikva.
“There is a crazy increase in the number of Palestinians killed. There has been a loosening of open-fire regulation,” she said.
“The settlers are rioting in Palestinian [areas] and this creates an escalation,” she added. “The army secures convoys of settlers with all kinds of marches and this is a provocation.”
On Tuesday, Staff Sgt. Ido Baruch was killed in a shooting near the settlement of Shavei Shomron in the northern West Bank while securing a march by settlers near the adjacent Palestinian town of Sebastia over a string of recent shootings in the West Bank.
“Anyone who proposes to bring more [Israeli] forces into the [West Bank] will bring the area into an unnecessary escalation,” she said, and argued: “There needs to be a firmer hand taken toward settlers.”
The Meretz leader’s comments came amid several days of heavy clashes in East Jerusalem and an uptick in violence in the West Bank, as well as a number of high-profile incidents in recent months in which soldiers were seen to be reinforcing or standing by during settler violence against Palestinians and left-wing activists.
In a tweet Saturday evening, Gantz urged “responsibility from elected officials in their statements.”
“Faced with a complex reality on the ground, commanders and soldiers of the IDF and all our security forces have full backing to carry out their activities, and provide security to Israeli citizens with determination and professionalism.”
Most recently, dozens of settlers from the settlement of Yitzhar, some armed with batons, arrived in the West Bank town of Huwara on Thursday and clashed with Palestinians in response to attacks on Israeli vehicles in the area.
Footage showed Israeli soldiers alongside the settlers as they attacked Palestinians in Huwara, with one firing into the air.
נראה כמיליציה משולבת: מתנחלים יורדים לבצע פעולת נקם בתוך הכפר הפלסטיני חווארה בטענה כי זרקו עליהם אבנים, מכים עם אלות, מנפצים רכבים ותוקפים תושבים, לצד חיילים ששומרים עליהם. pic.twitter.com/m6nynEnDbv
— Yuval Abraham יובל אברהם (@yuval_abraham) October 13, 2022
Israeli forces have ratcheted up arrest raids and other counterterror efforts in the West Bank since a spate of terror attacks against Israelis in the spring killed 19 people.
More than 100 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli operations this year, many of them while carrying out attacks or during clashes with security forces, but some were uninvolved.
In recent months, Palestinian gunmen have repeatedly attacked military posts, troops operating along the West Bank security barrier, Israeli settlements and civilians on the roads.
Three soldiers have been killed in attacks in recent weeks.
Galon also attacked far-right lawmaker Itamar Ben Gvir, who brandished a gun during a tour of the East Jerusalem neighborhood Sheikh Jarrah amid intense clashes between Israelis and Palestinians Thursday night.
“He is a bully and a provocateur. He came to Jerusalem accompanied by rioters from the hilltops — the defense minister should declare them to be a terrorist organization and call for the removal of Ben Gvir’s [parliamentary] immunity for encouraging incitement and terrorism,” she said.
“Ben Gvir is willing to pay the price of the blood of Jews and Arabs so that he can take pictures for his campaign,” Galon said. “He tells the police: ‘Shoot them with live fire!’ How did we come to this?”
The incident came as Ben Gvir, of the extreme right-wing Otzma Yehudit party, visited the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, with Palestinians and Jewish Israelis hurling stones at each other as fighting in several East Jerusalem neighborhoods continued.
While Ben Gvir did not use the weapon, which he drew while safely sheltered behind a truck, he called on police to use live fire on Arabs throwing stones, a night after threatening to “mow down” a group of Palestinians as he shouted at them during a visit to the same area.
Sheikh Jarrah, parts of which were historically known as Shimon Hatzadik, has become one of Jerusalem’s tensest neighborhoods. Jewish nationalists have sought to evict Palestinian residents in decades-long legal battles that helped touch off an 11-day war between Israel and the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip last year.
The extremist politician is a frequent visitor to the neighborhood during times of increased friction and has been accused of egging on tensions.
The incident came weeks before Israelis are set to return to the polls, with Religious Zionism — which merged with Otzma Yehudit for the election — widely forecast to be one of the three largest parties. Should Likud’s Benjamin Netanyahu retake power, Ben Gvir is widely thought to be likely to receive a senior ministerial portfolio.
The Times of Israel Community.