Walls blackened by fire, shattered windows and charred cars: residents of the Palestinian town of Huwara, in the occupied West Bank, discovered on Monday (February 27th) the damage of an attack carried out by Israeli settlers after the death of two of between them by Palestinian fire.
Rarely, the Israeli authorities called on the settlers to calm down after this new episode of violence which comes at a time when the conflict is already experiencing a marked escalation and when officials from each side pledged, during a meeting on Sunday in Jordan, to "prevent further violence".
On Sunday evening, dozens of Israeli settlers entered Huwara, a small town in the northern occupied West Bank where tensions are frequent.
They threw stones at Palestinian homes, set fire to buildings, garbage cans and cars, noted an AFP journalist.
>> To see: Rima Hassan, jurist: "Palestinian refugees are today quasi-stateless people"
In the early morning, a landfill looked like a car graveyard, with dozens of charred vehicles of which only the carcass remained.
"They burned everything they found," resident Kamal Odeh told AFP: "They burned more than 20 buildings, including shops, houses. Even the trees were not spared. ".
There have been no arrests so far, the army told AFP, which previously said it had evacuated dozens of Palestinians from their homes threatened by fires in Huwara.
According to Wajeh Odeh, a member of the municipality, more than 100 cars were set on fire and 30 houses burned or damaged.
"We don't do justice to ourselves"
The events come after two young Israeli settlers were shot and killed on Sunday while driving near Huwara, in what the government called a "Palestinian terrorist attack".
Then in the evening, a Palestinian was shot dead as Israeli forces and settlers entered Zaatara, another village near Nablus.
“I ask you, even if the blood is still hot and the spirits are heated, not to take justice into your own hands, but to let the security forces carry out their mission,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. a video released by his office.
The latter has been at the head since the end of December of one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, which has several ministers who are themselves settlers in the West Bank.
In a statement released on Monday, settlement mayors called on their residents to let the Israeli army "win".
"We do not take justice into our own hands", they wrote, calling on the authorities to carry out "a deterrent military operation".
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel of "protecting terrorist acts perpetrated by settlers" in this area of the West Bank, Palestinian territory occupied by the Jewish state since 1967.
The army has multiplied for almost a year in the north of the West Bank the operations presented as "anti-terrorist".
On Wednesday, eleven Palestinians were killed in Nablus in the Israeli army's deadliest military incursion into the West Bank since at least 2005.
With AFP
The summary of the
France 24 week invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribe
Take international news everywhere with you!
Download the France 24 app