PARIS: 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.”
France Terms West Bank Israeli Settler Violence as ‘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 West Bank. He stressed that it was clear the Israeli occupation must end.
The current year was already the lethal in at least 15 years for West Bank people, with around 200 Palestinian people and 26 Israelis killed, UN said.
Just in the three weeks since the October 7, over 120 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank. Clashes with Israeli soldiers have caused most deaths in the West Bank. Israel occupied the West Bank in the 1967 war.
France’s Legendre stated that about half the 100 tons of help France had sent to the Gaza Strip had entered the enclave. She further said it was not up to Israel to decide the future governance of the Gaza Strip, which she said should be part of a future Palestinian state.
