The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has condemned in the strongest terms Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir's calls to honour settlers who murdered Palestinian Qusai Jamal Maatan in "cold blood" and provide them immunity.
On Saturday morning, the Israeli authorities arrested two settlers suspected of killing Maatan after violently storming his village of Burqa on Friday and shooting residents there.
Israeli media outlets said one of the settlers is a spokesman for a member of the Knesset in the government coalition, and an activist in Ben-Gvir's Jewish Power Party.
In a statement, the Palestinian ministry considered Ben-Gvir's rants a call to encourage Jewish terrorists to murder more Palestinians. It warned against the Israeli occupation government's release of the murderers under "false pretexts".
It also warned of the high rate at which settlers are being armed and deployed on the roads in the occupied West Bank, and the intensification of their attacks on Palestinian towns.
The ministry stressed that Ben-Gvir's calls are a "new acknowledgement of the Israeli government's adoption and support of settler terrorists and the speedy acquittal and protection of criminals and murderers" as well as the "extent of the racial discrimination committed by the Israeli occupation authorities in the West Bank."
Israel: Smotrich freezes grants for Arab municipalities
Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.
Spotted an error on this page? Let us know
