Palestinians: End Israeli settler ‘terrorism’ or expect new intifada

The Palestinian Authority is calling on the international community to intervene to protect Palestinians in the face of increasing violence caused by the illegal Zionist settlers that has left hundreds injured in the West Bank in recent days.

According to reports, the Authority says the Israeli regime must be held to account for a surge in terrorist attacks by its illegal settlers against defenseless Palestinians.

Meantime, Palestinian factions are calling for the formation of local protection committees across the West Bank.

On Saturday night, illegal Zionist settlers and troops attacked the village of Burqa, injuring nearly 250 people during fierce clashes with Palestinians. Soldiers targeted them with live bullets, rubber-coated rounds, stun grenades and teargas.

The village has been a flashpoint of clashes in recent days. It sits near the site of a former settlement. The Israeli military destroyed that illegal settlement in 2005. But now the illegal settlers say they want to return.

Hamas praised residents of Burqa for resisting the Israeli incursion on Saturday, calling on Palestinians in the West Bank and in al-Quds to show support for the village.

The confrontations “by our heroes… are just an initial message, and the enemy must prepare for a comprehensive battle with all our people, to defeat and uproot the occupation and settlements,” Abd al-Hakim Huneini, a senior official in the resistance group’s West Bank division, said in a statement.

Palestinian groups and activists also warned that Israel’s practices and settler “assaults” against Palestinians in the West Bank will lead to a new intifada (uprising).

Some Palestinian activists said the intifada has already begun and called for escalating “popular resistance” against the Israeli troops and settlers.

“The intifada is already here,” said a senior activist belonging to the ruling Fatah faction. “What we are witnessing in the West Bank is similar to what happened during the First Intifada,” which erupted in 1987.

Hamas and other Palestinian factions, meanwhile, renewed their call for stepping up “all forms of resistance” against the illegal Zionist entity.

The Palestinian Authority, for its part, stepped up its criticism of the Israeli regime in the wake of the growing violence by its troops and settlers in the West Bank.

“At a time when the Palestinian people and the whole world celebrate Christmas, the settler militias, their armed terrorist organizations, the occupation forces and their various branches continue to escalate the aggression against the Palestinian people, their land, property, homes and holy sites,” its ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.

The ministry said that the illegal Zionist settlers again had attacked Palestinians in various parts of the West Bank over the past week “with the participation and support of the occupation army.”

The Israeli regime is “fully and directly responsible for this expansionist colonial war,” it said, “which constitutes the true essence of the official Israeli policy toward the Palestinian people and their rights.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad also called for the continuation of attacks on Israeli soldiers and its illegal settlers, saying this will inevitably lead to a “comprehensive intifada.”

Senior PIJ official Sheikh Bassam al-Sa’adi called for intensified cooperation between all forces and factions to protect our people in the face of conspiracies being hatched against them.”

SS