Following a Palestinian shooting operation on Thursday, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich demanded to “massively develop settlement as an appropriate Zionist answer”.
Illegal Jewish settlers established on Friday a new settlement outpost on the lands of the Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya village, south of Nablus, in the northern occupied West Bank, the Anadolu news agency reported.
Yacoub Awais, the head of the Al-Lubban ash-Sharqiya Council, reportedly told Anadolu that “a group of settlers established a settlement outpost on the village lands”.
Awais explained that the outpost consists of six caravans, warning that it will pose a danger to the local population and Palestinian territories, Anadolu added.
The settlement outpost is located on a mountain overlooking a place where, on Thursday, a Palestinian man carried out a shooting operation in which two Israeli settlers were killed, before he was killed by Israeli army gunfire.
Following the operation, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said that he demanded stronger action in the West Bank.
This “requires the IDF to close roads, return the checkpoints and massively develop settlement as an appropriate Zionist answer,” Smotrich said, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Two Settlers Killed in West Bank – Smotrich Demands ‘Zionist Answer’
Strong Condemnation
For its part, the Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the establishment of the settlement outpost.
“We strongly condemn the continuing escalation in attacks by Jewish colonial terrorist elements against citizens, their land, property, trees, homes, and holy places,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Ministry considered this escalation “a blatant challenge to the resolutions of international legitimacy and international law, and a disdain for the positions of countries that reject settlement.”
“We see that the Israeli government does not give any weight to the international community and its decisions, and does not respect the positions and demands of countries in this regard as long as they are not translated into deterrent actions and penalties,” it added.
Estimates indicate about 700,000 Israeli settlers live in roughly 300 illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
All Jewish settlements in the occupied territories are considered illegal under international law.
In parallel with the war in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli army escalated its incursions into cities, towns and refugee camps in the West Bank and illegal Jewish settlers intensified their attacks.
Israeli Annexation Moving Forward with ‘Unprecedented’ Funding for Illegal Settlements
Gaza Genocide
Currently on trial before the International Court of Justice for genocide against Palestinians, Israel has been waging a devastating war on Gaza since October 7.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 30,228 Palestinians have been killed, and 71,377 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Moreover, at least 7,000 people are unaccounted for, presumed dead under the rubble of their homes throughout the Strip.
Palestinian and international organizations say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
The Israeli aggression has also resulted in the forceful displacement of nearly two million people from all over the Gaza Strip, with the vast majority of the displaced forced into the densely crowded southern city of Rafah near the border with Egypt – in what has become Palestine’s largest mass exodus since the 1948 Nakba.
Israel says that 1,200 soldiers and civilians were killed during the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on October 7. Israeli media published reports suggesting that many Israelis were killed on that day by ‘friendly fire.’
(PC, Anadolu)
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