Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says Palestinian communities in West Bank should look like Gaza’s ‘Jabalia’.
Published On 6 Jan 2025
Three Israelis were killed and eight others injured in a shooting attack near the illegal West Bank settlement of Kedumim, Israeli authorities have said.
Israeli media outlets cited security officials as saying at least two Palestinian gunmen opened fire at cars and a bus outside the settlement before fleeing the scene on Monday.
The shooting killed two women in their 70s as well as a 35-year-old police investigator from the illegal settlement of Ariel.
The incident comes as the war rages on in Gaza amid efforts to reach a truce deal.
After the shooting, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich appeared to call for all-out violence against Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank, akin to the devastation Israel has unleashed on Gaza.
“Funduq, Nablus and Jenin need to look like Jabalia,” he said, referring to the northern Gaza area that Israel has levelled and deprived of humanitarian aid for weeks.
Israel has faced accusations of ethnic cleansing in Jabalia. United Nations experts and several rights groups have also said that Israel is carrying out a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
“The terrorism in [the West Bank] and the terrorism from Gaza and Iran is the same terrorism – and it must be defeated,” Smotrich added on Monday, according to the Times of Israel.
Since the start of the war on Gaza in October 2023, Israel has intensified its crackdown on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, killing hundreds of people. The past year has also seen an uptick in settler attacks.
Palestinian gunmen – some associated with Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad – have also carried out attacks against Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied territ