US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Wednesday that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich's comments calling for the "erasure" of the Palestinian village of Hawara, south of Nablus in the West Bank, are "abhorrent, irresponsible and disgusting."
Price also called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials to publicly disavow these statements.
Palestinian Prime Minister Muhammad Shtayyeh affirmed that the Palestinians no longer depend on international protection and condemnation, and that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas instructed the formation of popular committees to protect Palestinian villages and towns from settlers and the occupation forces.
This comes at a time when the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the death of a Palestinian, who succumbed to critical injuries, and the injury of 3 others, during the storming of the Occupation Forces, Wednesday, the Aqabat Jaber camp in the city of Jericho, in the Jordan Valley, in search of the perpetrators of the shooting attack that resulted in the killing of an Israeli-American last Monday.
The ministry confirmed - in a statement - the death of the young man, Mahmoud Jamal Hassan Hamdan (22 years), from critical injuries he sustained, while a spokeswoman for Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem indicated that he had died when he arrived at the medical facility.
The occupation army radio announced the arrest of 3 Palestinians from the camp during the raid, and said that they were involved in the shooting.
The occupation forces withdrew from Aqabat Jabr camp, while they continued to besiege the town of Hawara and nearby villages, south of Nablus, since last Sunday.
The Israeli army besieged the city of Jericho and closed its entrances since last Monday.
Human shields
On the other hand, video clips showed that the occupation forces took civilians as human shields during their raid on Aqabat Jabr camp on Wednesday.
The pictures showed that the occupation forces arrested a man carrying a child next to a military vehicle around which the occupation soldiers gathered as they entered the camp.
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, said that she would investigate the incident of the occupation forces using human shields during the raid.
And she confirmed - in an interview with Al-Jazeera - that the use of human shields is a common practice among the occupation forces, stressing that international law criminalizes their use.
International law defines human shields as the intentional placement of a group of people, civilians or military personnel, around military objectives to "deter the enemy" from attacking them.
It may take other forms, such as putting civilians or hostages in front of advancing forces to prevent the enemy from confronting them.
Storage of weapons and equipment and the stationing of combat military units in areas populated by civilians are also classified under human shields.