Israeli settler organisations and political leaders have called for revenge against Palestinians. They are chanting slogans of “we want to see bloodshed” and “wipe out the village of Tal.”
On Friday Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, called for the West Bank villages of Tal, Iraq Burin and Beit Furik to be wiped out. He said the inhabitants of these villages should be made like the residents of the refugee camps of Nablus and Tulkarem.
He said: “These people should vacate the place.” He called on the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for Israel to take over responsibility for the area from the Palestinian Authority.
Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, said: “For every Jew who has been killed, the enemy must be driven from their land and their homes.” He demanded that the same strategy be carried out in the West Bank as in Gaza, where entire settlements have been levelled.
The calls came amid attacks by illegal settlers, backed by Israeli troops, on the West Bank village of Tal. Four residents of the village were killed by Israeli gunfire in Friday’s attack. The Israeli military said one resident had tried to snatch a weapon from Israelis and carry out an attack, but was later shot dead.
According to the Palestinian health ministry, at least 87 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in the occupied West Bank so far this year. Of them, 21 were killed by settlers.
Zvi Sukkot, a member of Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionist Party, said in an interview with Channel 14 on Friday that the village of Tal needed to be reduced to rubble. The same day he posted the word “revenge” on a black screen on Facebook.
The same call came from the armed Israeli settler group Hilltop Youth. Middle East Eye saw messages reading “wipe out the village of Tal” on the group’s WhatsApp channel.
One message read: “We want revenge. Not any kind of promise of settlement or of building more houses.” Another read: “We want to see bloodshed. Peace will not come by any means without revenge.”
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report