Israeli minister: “Palestinian town should be wiped away”

Israeli settlers ransacked the village of Huwara on Sunday night.

Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister, has said that the West Bank village of Huwara should be “wiped out” by the Jewish state. Smotrich’s remarks, which came days after Zionist settlers attacked the town in retaliation for a Palestinian attack, were dubbed a “incitation to war crimes.”

Smotrich was questioned about why he “liked” a regional councilor’s tweet on Sunday night asking for the village’s destruction during a business conference on Wednesday.

The minister declared that he enjoyed the tweet since he believed Huwara should be completely destroyed. I believe the State of Israel ought to carry it out.

Huwara’s Palestinian inhabitant was shot to death on Sunday while Jewish settlers ransacked the community for many hours. According to the Palestinian Red Crescent, dozens of further people were injured, including two others who were shot. Before Israeli police could calm the unrest, the settlers in the Palestinian village set cars and homes on fire.

After two Israeli brothers were killed by Palestinian gunmen in the town of Har Bracha, five kilometres away from Huwara, riots broke out. There are hundreds of settlements on the West Bank, all of which are prohibited under international law.

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon put an end to settlement building in 2004, but it resumed under current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2012. According to statistics from Israeli peace activists, the Israeli government has so far legalised 132 of these settlements while another 147 are still prohibited by Israeli law.

On Thursday, Netanyahu gave the hardline Zionist minister Smotrich responsibility over civil matters in the West Bank, including planning, construction, and land distribution. Smotrich’s first action in this capacity was to approve the construction of more than 7,000 additional dwellings, some of which will be found in unofficially recognised outposts.

Yair Lapid, a former prime minister and current leader of the opposition, called Smotrich’s remarks “incitement to war crimes.” On Wednesday, Lapid told reporters that “Jews don’t commit pogroms and Jews don’t destroy villages. The government has lost its way.

Afterwards, Smotrich made an effort to retract his remarks, saying that his intention was for Israel to “act in a targeted manner against terrorists and sympathisers of terrorism” rather than for the town of Huwara to be completely destroyed.