Tel Aviv- Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir once again renewed calls for a wide-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank, urging the need to kill “thousands” of Palestinians.
Ben Gvir made the comments on Friday, 23 June, during a press conference where he called for the immediate legalization of the illegal Evyatar settlement outpost in the West Bank, which sits on privately owned Palestinian land.
“The Land of Israel must be settled and at the same time as the settlement of the Land a military operation must be launched. [We must] demolish buildings, eliminate terrorists, not one or two, but tens and hundreds, and if necessary even thousands,” the security minister said.
“The Land of Israel is for the people of Israel, we are backing you, run to the hills, settle down. We love you,” Ben Gvir said, offering his “full and complete backing” to settler groups who regularly march in protest against Evyatar’s dismantlement.
The minister’s comments come following an unprecedented escalation of violence in the occupied West Bank.
Last week, a brutal Israeli raid took place in Jenin, involving the first airstrike on the West Bank in over 20 years. The following day, four Israelis were shot and killed in the Eli settlement north of Ramallah.
In response to the shooting, settlers violently rampaged through the West Bank, torching homes and assaulting Palestinians.
On 21 June, the Israeli military launched its first targeted drone assassination in the West Bank since the Second Intifada. Several resistance members were killed in the strike.
Marking the second aerial assault on the occupied West Bank in less than a week, some interpreted the events as the early stages of the operation which Ben Gvir and others have been calling for.
However, Israel has yet to take an official decision on launching such an operation, as the military establishment believes that it would be costly.
Ben Gvir’s comments follow a decision by the prime minister to give Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s Finance Minister, significant control over administration in the West Bank, a move seen as the early steps of a de-facto annexation of the entire territory.
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