Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Ongoing Efforts to End Settler Terrorism and Remove Barriers

Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Ongoing Efforts to End Settler Terrorism and Remove Barriers

Lifting Sanctions on Extremist Settlers Encourages More Crimes Against Our People

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates condemns in the strongest terms the brutal attacks carried out by armed settler militias and terrorist elements against Palestinian citizens, towns, properties, homes and holy sites. The latest of these heinous assaults targeted the towns of Al-Funduq and Jinsafut, east of Qalqilya, where armed settler gangs set homes and shops ablaze, vandalized vehicles, terrorized unarmed civilians, and injured 21 people. These crimes were committed under the protection of the Israeli occupation army and political leadership, who allowed at least 50 masked terrorist settlers to launch a public and organized attack on the town of Al-Funduq. The Israeli occupation authorities, fully aware of the attackers' origins and bases, took no action to prevent these acts and, in many cases, intervened to suppress Palestinians attempting to defend themselves.

Moreover, the Israeli occupation forces have intensified collective punishment and restrictions on the Palestinian people throughout the occupied West Bank. This includes sealing off of all entrances to Palestinian governorates, cities, towns, and refugee camps using iron gates, earth mounds, and military checkpoints. Currently, the total number of illegal barriers has reached approximately 898, including 16 newly installed iron gates in recent days. These measures have fragmented the West Bank, severed connections between its areas, paralyzed Palestinian mobility, and left thousands of families stranded for hours at checkpoints of humiliation and suffering in what constitutes the most egregious form of Israeli apartheid.

The Ministry views with grave concern recent decisions to lift sanctions on hardline extremist settlers, including the Israeli Defense Minister's decision to release those settlers. It warns that such attempts to fuel further violence in the West Bank as a pretext to replicate the crimes of genocide and displacement that Israel committed in Gaza and extend them to the West Bank, paving the way for brutal disorder to facilitate its annexation.

The Ministry holds the international community fully accountable for its failure to fulfill its obligations to protect the Palestinian people and demands urgent action, including the imposition of deterrent sanctions against Israel, the occupying Power, and its settler terrorist networks.

The Ministry calls for dismantling these terrorist settler organizations, drying up their financial sources, and ending the political and legal protection afforded to them. Simultaneously, the Ministry continues its comprehensive political, diplomatic, and legal efforts with states, international organizations, and the United Nations to expose the crimes of the Israeli occupation and its settlers, and to rally a global coalition capable of pressuring the Israeli government to halt its brutal attacks, dismantle its apartheid system, and end its illegal occupation of the land of the State of Palestine.