Israel president condemns ‘pogrom’ after deadly settler attack

A Palestinian man inspects a damaged house following an overnight Israeli raid in the Balata refugee camp east of Nablus in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, August 15, 2024. – An Israeli air strike on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank killed two Palestinians on August 15 as Jewish worshippers visited a nearby disputed holy site, Palestinian sources and Israeli army said. Israel President Isaac Herzog on Thursday condemned a “pogrom” after the Jewish settler attack. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / Agence France-Presse)

JERUSALEM, Undefined — Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday condemned a “pogrom” after a Jewish settler attack on a village in the occupied West Bank that the Palestinian Authority said killed one Palestinian and wounded another.

Mahmoud Abdel Qader Sadda, 23, “was martyred, and a citizen was critically injured in the chest by settlers’ bullets” in the village of Jit, west of Nablus, a Palestinian health ministry statement said.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa, citing local sources, said “armed colonists” attacked the western part of the village, “setting several vehicles ablaze.”

The Israeli military said “dozens of Israeli civilians, some of them masked”, entered Jit and “set fire to vehicles and structures in the area, hurled rocks and Molotov cocktails.”

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One Israeli was taken for questioning, said a military statement, which did not confirm the Palestinian man’s death.

“I strongly condemn this evening’s pogrom in Samaria,” Herzog wrote on X, formerly Twitter, using the name of the biblical province corresponding to the northern West Bank.

“This is an extreme minority that harms the law-abiding settler population and the settlement as a whole and the name and position of Israel in the world during a particularly sensitive and difficult period,” he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “takes seriously the riots that took place this evening”, according to a statement from his office.

“Those responsible for any criminal act will be caught and prosecuted,” the statement said.

Violence in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967 and separated from the Gaza Strip by Israeli territory, has surged since the Gaza war started on October 7.

Israeli settlement there — considered illegal under international law — has also hit new records.

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Netanyahu, head of the conservative Likud party, has governed Israel since December 2022 with the support of far-right formations advocating more Israeli settlements in the West Bank or even outright annexation.

His right-wing Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, an architect of the upsurge in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, wrote on X that the attackers in Jit had “nothing to do with the settlement and the settlers”.

“They are criminals who must be dealt with by the law enforcement authorities with the full force of the law,” he added.

Since October 7, at least 633 Palestinians have been killed in violence with settlers or Israeli troops, according to the Palestinian authorities.

At least 18 Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in attacks involving Palestinians, according to official Israeli figures.

Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, some 490,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank alongside roughly three million Palestinians.