Politics Israel wants to take action against settler violence
In view of a new wave of violence by radical Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to take decisive action against it.
17.11.2025, 05:54
SDA
According to his office, he announced that "we will take very strong measures against violence against both Israeli soldiers and Palestinians because we are a nation of law". At the same time, he made it clear that he considers violent Israeli settlers to be a minority. The vast majority are law-abiding. It was Netanyahu's first public statement on the recent attacks in the West Bank, as the Times of Israel noted.
Hours later, according to the newspaper, police announced that they had arrested three Jewish settlers who had entered a restricted military area on the way to a Palestinian village on Saturday armed with makeshift weapons. Last week, according to Palestinian reports, radical settlers in the West Bank set fire to a mosque and sprayed racist slogans on the walls of the place of worship.
Israel's Chief of Staff Ejal Zamir condemned the recent attacks against Palestinians and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. According to the army, he said that Israel's military would "not tolerate" the behavior of a criminal minority that discredits a law-abiding population.
Violence on the rise
The army has repeatedly been accused of not taking decisive enough action against the attackers. So far, there have been hardly any reports of settlers being held accountable after attacks. On Friday, the UN Human Rights Office complained of increasing violence against Palestinians. More than 260 attacks were recorded in October, more than in any single month since 2006, it said. Israel conquered the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Six-Day War. Today, around 700,000 Israeli settlers live there among three million Palestinians.
Since the massacre by the Islamist terrorist organization Hamas in Israel on 7 October 2023 and the resulting war in the Gaza Strip, tensions have escalated. According to UN figures, more than 1,000 Palestinians have since been killed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem in attacks by settlers or Israeli army operations. 59 Israelis have been killed there in the same period. The Palestinians claim these areas for their own state with East Jerusalem as its capital.
UN Security Council discusses the situation in the Middle East
The UN Security Council is discussing the situation in the Middle East today. It is expected that it will also discuss a resolution by the US government to safeguard US President Donald Trump's peace plan. It is supported by Egypt, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey, among others. It states that the peace process could offer "a path to Palestinian self-determination and statehood". This point triggered angry reactions in Israel.
"Our rejection of a Palestinian state on any territory west of the Jordan River is valid and has not changed one bit," said Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, according to a statement from his office. "For decades I have rejected such attempts, and I have done so both against external pressure and against pressure from within. Therefore, I do not need assurances, tweets or lectures from anyone." Previously, far-right coalition partners had called on him to make it clear that Israel would not allow the establishment of a Palestinian state.
Defense Minister Israel Katz and Foreign Minister Gideon Saar also reiterated that there would be no Palestinian state in view of today's meeting of the UN Security Council. Most recently, the G7 countries of economically strong democracies, among others, had called for the Middle East peace plan for the Gaza Strip to be swiftly secured by a UN Security Council mandate. In addition to the disarmament of Hamas, the second phase of the plan also provides for a force of international soldiers to stabilize the coastal area and a transitional government made up of Palestinian technocrats.
