Jewish settlers across the West Bank are being armed and trained by the Israeli military in anticipation of unrest and violence leading up to a Palestinian demand for statehood at the United Nations in three weeks.
Phoebe Greenwood in Tel Aviv
The Israeli Defence Force fears that demonstrations ahead of the UN debate on September 20 will bring violent confrontations between Palestinians and Israeli settlers living illegally in settlements across territory occupied by Israel.
Leaked documents have outlined Israeli plans to arm security guards working on the Jewish settlements with riot gear, including tear gas and stun grenades.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, an Israeli army spokesperson confirmed that the military is training “community leadership and security personnel throughout Judea and Samaria” but refused to comment on whether they were also being provided with additional arms.
An Israeli security source told the Daily Telegraph: “These security officers are employed by the Ministry of Defence and have to be able respond to any security threat, like the murders in Itamar. It would be irresponsible if we did not prepare them for every eventuality.”
In March this year, five members of the Jewish Fogel family were killed while they slept in their home in the West Bank’s Itamar settlement by two Palestinian teenagers from a neighbouring village.
Mata Vilnai, the Israeli home affairs minister announced on Tuesday that a terror cell based in the Sinai Peninsula is preparing to carry out a series of attacks in Israel over the coming weeks.
On Monday morning, a Palestinian man from Nablus drove a stolen taxi into a police blockade outside a Tel Aviv nightclub before stabbing several onlookers. Eight people, including several teenagers, were injured.
Gill Kosover, who owns a car workshop outside where the attack took place, said Israelis are braced for more violence.
“This is nothing,” he said. “This will happen more and more as we head towards September. This is just the beginning. Things are starting to boil here.”
But Palestinians are also victims of the growing communal violence in the West Bank.
B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights agency, has reported 42 cases of Jewish settler violence for police investigation since the beginning of 2011, including the murder of two Palestinian teenagers.
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, accused Israeli soldiers of turning a blind eye to settler assaults on Palestinians: “The close relationship between the IDF and the illegal settlement project in the West Bank is confirmed by the many reports we see of the most violent settlers forcing Palestinians of their ancestral land under the noses of the IDF, sometimes with their protection if not connivance,” he said.
www.telegraph.co.uk, 30 Aug 2011
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