Washington, USA – US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Israel to take urgent steps to curb violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank.
Blinken’s call was made in a telephone call with Israeli wartime cabinet minister Benny Gantz, WAFA reported.
Blinken “stressed the urgent need for affirmative steps to de-escalate tensions in the West Bank, including by confronting rising levels of settler extremist violence,” the State Department said in a press statement.
Israeli settler violence has increased significantly since the outbreak of the ongoing Israeli campaign in Gaza, rising from an average of three incidents to seven per day, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA).
Blinken’s comments came as Israeli occupation forces carried out raids in the occupied West Bank and continued its raids of several of Gaza’s major hospitals, including the Al-Shifa Medical Complex, forcing them to suspend operations amid a depletion of fuel necessary for operation of power generators.
Earlier yesterday, France condemned violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, calling it a “policy of terror” aimed at displacing Palestinians, urging Israeli occupation authorities to protect Palestinians from the violence.
“Concerning the West Bank, I’d like to express the strongest condemnation by France of the violence carried out by the settlers against the Palestinians,” French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre told a press conference.
“Violence which has the clear objective of forced displacement of the Palestinians and a policy of terror.”
She said the Israeli authorities needed to take the necessary measures to protect the Palestinian population and warned that the settlement policy harms the two-state solution.