Britain, partners call on Israel to tackle settler violence

Jeddah - Yasmine El Tohamy - LONDON: Britain, the EU, and more than a dozen partner countries, including Australia and Canada, called on Israel to take immediate and concrete steps to tackle settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

“This rise in extremist settler violence committed against Palestinians is unacceptable,” the countries said in a joint statement published by the British government.
“Proactive steps must now be taken to ensure the effective and immediate protection of Palestinian communities.”
On Thursday, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said those responsible for settler violence against Palestinians would be banned from entering Britain, following a similar plan by the EU.
“Israel’s failure to protect Palestinians and prosecute extremist settlers has led to an environment of near complete impunity in which settler violence has reached unprecedented levels,” said the joint statement — from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, the EU, Finland, France, Ireland, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and Britain.
“This undermines security in the West Bank and the region and threatens prospects for a lasting peace.”
The statement said that since the start of October, settlers have committed more than 343 violent attacks, killing eight Palestinian civilians, injuring more than 83, and forcing 1,026 Palestinians from their homes.
Turkiye separately condemned “provocations” by Israeli forces during raids on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin and the desecration of a mosque there, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said, calling for those responsible to be punished.
Israeli troops killed a youth at a hospital and read out Jewish prayers at a mosque in Jenin during the raids that Palestinian authorities said killed 12.
“We strongly condemn the provocations of Israeli soldiers who stormed the Jenin Refugee Camp and disrespected the sanctity of a place of worship by entering the mosque,” spokesman Oncu Keceli said on social messaging platform X.
“In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, where tensions are running extremely high due to settler terror and heavy pressure and attacks by Israeli security forces against Palestinians, we expect attacks on Muslim holy places to be ended immediately and those who perpetrate these provocations to be punished most severely,” he added.
The Palestinian government criticized the operation inside Jenin as a “dangerous escalation” and, in a statement, said the desecration of the mosque by some Israeli troops fanned religious tension. Israel’s army said it would discipline the soldiers.
Turkiye, which supports a two-state solution to the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict, has harshly criticized Israel for its attacks on Gaza and in the West Bank, saying the Israeli settlers in the region were “terrorists.”
It has called for an immediate ceasefire and slammed Western support for Israel.