Israeli settlers rampage at a military base in the West Bank
[June 30, 2025]
By MELANIE LIDMAN
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Dozens of Israeli settlers rampaged around a
military base in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, setting fires,
vandalizing military vehicles, spraying graffiti and attacking soldiers,
the military said.
Sunday night’s unrest came after several attacks in the West Bank
carried out by Jewish settlers and anger at their arrests by security
forces attempting to contain the violence over the past few days.
More than 100 settlers on Wednesday evening entered the West Bank town
of Kfar Malik, setting property ablaze and opening fire on Palestinians
who tried to stop them, Najeb Rostom, head of the local council, said.
Three Palestinians were killed after the military intervened. Israeli
security forces arrested five settlers.
“No civilized country can tolerate violent and anarchic acts of burning
a military facility, damaging IDF property and attacking security
personnel by citizens of the country,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
said.
Footage on Israeli media showed dozens of young, religious men typically
associated with “hilltop youth,” an extremist movement of Israeli
settlers who occupy West Bank hilltops and have been accused of
attacking Palestinians and their property.
The footage showed security forces using stun grenades as dozens of
settlers gathered around the military base just north of Ramallah. The
Israeli military released photos of the infrastructure burned in the
attack, which it said included “systems that help thwart terrorist
attacks and maintain security.”
Far-right Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has often defended
Israelis accused of similar crimes, offered a rare condemnation of
Sunday's violence. “Attacking security forces, security facilities, and
IDF soldiers who are our brothers, our protectors, is a red line, and
must be dealt with in full severity. We are brothers,” he wrote on X.
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Opposition leader Yair Lapid told Israel’s Army radio that the riots
were carried out by “Jewish terrorists, gangs of criminals, who feel
backed by the (governing) coalition.”
A hard-line supporter of Jewish settlements, Ben-Gvir was previously
convicted in Israel of racist incitement and support for terrorist
groups, and has called for the deportation of all Arab citizens from
Israel. Though once widely shunned by Israel’s politicians, Ben-Gvir’s
influence has grown and alongside a shift to the right in the
country’s electorate has further emboldened violence from extremist
settlers in the West Bank.
Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed Monday to “eradicate this
violence from the root,” and implored the extremist settlers to
remember that many of the security forces are exhausted reservists
serving multiple rounds of duty.
Over the past two years of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, Palestinian
residents in the West Bank have reported a major increase in Israeli
checkpoints and delays across the territory. Israel, meanwhile, says
threats from the West Bank against its citizens are on the rise.
Israel captured the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in the 1967
Mideast war, and Palestinians want all three territories for their
future state. The West Bank is home to some 3 million Palestinians
live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, and 500,000
Jewish settlers. The international community overwhelmingly
considers settlements illegal.
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