Israeli forces moved against rogue settlers laying siege to Palestinians on Thursday, after unusually strong US criticism, even as Israel re-opened an emblematic settlement elsewhere in the West Bank.
The army’s pursuit of the settlers comes on the same day that a number of Israeli officials, including Defence Minister Israel Katz, were celebrating the reopening of another settlement at Ganim in the northern West Bank. The US criticism of the siege is especially striking coming from Huckabee, an evangelical Christian pastor who in the past has embraced Jewish settlement in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, and rejected the idea of a Palestinian state. Violence against Palestinians by Israeli settlers in the West Bank has increased dramatically since the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas from the Gaza Strip.
More than 500,000 Israelis live in settlements in the West Bank, which are illegal under international law, among some three million Palestinians in the territory.
