SAN FRANCISCO: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has asked Israel to take an urgent action to stop settler violence against Palestinian people in the occupied West Bank, Western media reported on Thursday.
US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that Blinken stressed the immediate need for affirmative measures to de-escalate tensions in the occupied West Bank, including by confronting increasing levels of settler extremist violence in the area.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also spoke with Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry regarding efforts to increase humanitarian help to Palestinians in urgent need, the State Department said on Thursday.
Blinken Asks Israel for Immediate Action Against Settler Violence in West Bank
In a statement, the State Department said that the US Secretary of State reaffirmed the significance of concrete measures to minimize harm to Palestinian civilians in Gaza. It added that Blinken reaffirmed the US’s rejection of the forced displacement of the people of Palestine.
Similarly, France has denounced violence by Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, describing it a “policy of terror” aimed at displacing Palestinian people and asking Israel to protect people of Palestine from the violence.
According to UN report, daily settler assaults have more than doubled, since October 7 and Israeli attack on the Gaza Strip. “Concerning the West Bank, I would like to express the strongest condemnation by Paris of the violence carried out by the settlers against the Palestinian people,” said French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre in a statement.
The statement added “Violence which has the main objective of forced displacement of the Palestinian people and a policy of terror.”
She said the Israel needed to take the necessary steps to protect the Palestinians and also warned that the settlement policy damaged the two-state solution.
UN human rights chief Volker Turk also expressed deep concerns over daily settler assaults against the people of Palestine in the region. Speaking in Geneva Turk said he was deeply concerned regarding the intensification of violence against Palestinian in the occupied West Bank. He stressed that it was clear the Israeli occupation must end.
