Latest news with #AviBluth
Miami Herald
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Miami Herald
New Videos Show Alleged Israeli Settler Attacks in West Bank
Newly recorded video shows buildings and vehicles ablaze in a West Bank town in what Palestinian residents and Israeli media said was an arson attack by Israeli settlers that left at least eight people wounded just days after a pregnant Israeli woman was shot dead on her way to deliver her baby in hospital. Newsweek has reached out to Israel's Security Agency (ISA) and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), as well as the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Ministry and the Palestinian Red Cross Society (PRCS) for comment. The attack highlights mounting violence in the West Bank at the same time as the war in Gaza is intensifying again, fueling deeper divisions and increasingly extremist rhetoric that further imperils prospects of Israeli-Palestinian peace or the chance of the two-state solution to the Middle East conflict that is supported by much of the world. Violence is not confined to the region, with two Israeli embassy staff shot dead outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC and President Donald Trump condemned what he called "horrible killings" based on antisemitism. Video footage circulating on social media, as well as some published by Al-Jazeera, showed houses and cars ablaze, as screams were heard in the background. Residents broadcast urgent calls for help through mosque loudspeakers in efforts to contain the fires, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA. About 40 Israeli settlers raided the West Bank village of Bruqin, torching five vehicles and two gardens, with the group fleeing as Israeli forces arrived, according to Israeli website Yedioth Ahronoth. The Israeli police is also investigating a separate incident where settlers torched a mosque and a vehicle near Usarin and Aqraba, south of Nablus, leaving graffiti reading "Am Israel Chai" (The People of Israel Live) and "Jewish blood is not worthless," it reported. There have been no reports of arrests in both attacks. Earlier this week, Israeli forces said they killed a Hamas operative in the town of Bruqin identified as the man who shot an Israeli woman and her husband while on their to deliver her baby-the mother later dying at hospital, according to The Times of Israel. In January, IDF Central Commander Maj.-Gen. Avi Bluth condemned extremist settlers following an attack on the Palestinian village of Al-Funduq in the West Bank's Efraim region, saying violent disturbances will not be tolerated and that a probe had been launched, according to The Jerusalem Post. The West Bank hosts around three million Palestinians and some 500,000 Jewish settlers in over 100 settlements deemed illegal under international law. These settlements are seen a major obstacle to peace and a central issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Palestinian Foreign Ministry on X: "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs renews its call for deterrent international action to stop the organized terrorist attacks by #settler gangs. The crimes committed by settlers in Bruqin and other areas are organized and planned with the aim of displacing our people." Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told the Times of Israel: "Upon receiving the report, troops were dispatched to the scene. The suspects fled the area before the troops arrived and the incident is under further investigation." Some Palestinian families told media channels they would leave the area fearing more violence could threaten their lives. Related Articles Iran Threatens 'Devastating and Decisive Response' If AttackedMelania Trump Reacts to Israeli Embassy Staffer KillingsWhy Israel's New Gaza Operation Is DifferentThe 1600: Trump's Tax Bill Clears House in Razor-Thin Vote 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Arab News
05-04-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Israeli general condemns West Bank settler riot, ‘vandalism' by troops
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: The Israeli military's top commander in the occupied West Bank condemned recent violence by Israeli settlers against police and 'unacceptable' conduct by soldiers, in a video shared by the army on Friday. A military statement said that Major General Avi Bluth addressed a 'series of unusual incidents' while visiting Israeli police officers in the West Bank, near the site of a riot involving settlers earlier this week. Israeli police said they had arrested 17 suspects over the 'violent riot' on Wednesday near the settlement outpost of Givat Habaladim, northeast of the Palestinian city of Ramallah, during which Israeli settlers threw stones at officers and torched a police car. Bluth 'emphasized that these are exceptional incidents that must be addressed with the necessary severity,' the military statement said. Referring to the settlers' attack on Israeli forces, Bluth said in the video: 'Beyond the fact that this is a red line that has been crossed and will be dealt with seriously, there is no greater act of ingratitude.' Rights groups often accuse the army of protecting Israeli settlers in the West Bank, and the United Nations has said that settler attacks against Palestinians are taking place in a climate of 'impunity.' In a recent incident Bluth did not address in the video, the army said that this week 'dozens of Israeli civilians... set fire to property' in the Palestinian village of Duma, injuring several people. The Israeli general mentioned 'vandalism and graffiti' by reserve soldiers during a military raid on Wednesday, in the Dheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem. While a major offensive since January has focused on refugee camps in the northern West Bank, Dheisheh in the south has seen an uptick in Israeli army raids in recent weeks. Images shared on social media showed vandalized apartments, where furniture was broken and Israeli nationalist slogans spray painted on walls. Bluth said that 'the conduct in Dheisheh by our reserve soldiers is not what we stand for.' 'Vandalism and graffiti during an operational mission are, from our perspective, unacceptable incidents. It is inconceivable that IDF (army) soldiers do not act according to their commanders' orders,' he said. Since war began in October 2023 in the Gaza Strip — a separate Palestinian territory — violence has soared in the West Bank. Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 917 Palestinians, including militants, in the West Bank since October 2023, according to Palestinian health ministry figures. Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to official figures. Israel has occupied the West Bank, home to about three million Palestinians, since 1967. Excluding annexed east Jerusalem, around 490,000 Israelis live there in settlements and outposts that are illegal under international law. Outposts are also illegal under Israeli law.
Asharq Al-Awsat
11-02-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israel Eases Shooting Orders for Soldiers in West Bank
The Israeli Army has expanded its shooting orders for its soldiers in the occupied West Bank, leading to the recent high death toll of unarmed Palestinians, Israeli media said on Monday. The Haaretz newspaper said the army has decided to implement the open-fire mechanism it used in the Gaza Strip, whether suspected or not, in the West Bank. The change in the guidelines, according to the report, was initiated by the head of the Central Command, Avi Bluth, and the commander of the Judea and Samaria Division, Brig. Gen. Yaki Dolf. Army sources told the newspaper Bluth ordered that the Israeli forces may shoot to kill anyone 'messing with the ground' and that there is no need to apply the procedure for arresting a suspect in these cases. Meanwhile, Dolf ordered that forces may fire live rounds at any vehicle coming toward a checkpoint from a combat zone to force the driver to stop before reaching it, according to the same source. The Israeli army claimed the order's objective is to prevent Palestinians in the West Bank from planting explosive devices on roads where the Israeli army operate, but combat sources say that the expanded order has made soldiers on the ground 'trigger-happy.' Since January 21, Israeli forces have expanded their ongoing military campaign in the West Bank to include the camps of Nur Shams and Al-Fara'a, following similar attacks that killed dozens in Jenin and Tulkarm. They say that the expanded open-fire orders by the Central Command have resulted in several serious incidents. On Sunday, soldiers shot to death a man and woman, who was eight months pregnant, when they drove toward an Israeli checkpoint near Tulkarm. The army's preliminary investigation found that the man was shot and killed inside the car without trying to breach the checkpoint or threaten the soldiers, reported Haaretz. His pregnant wife, Sundus Shalabi, 23, was able to get out of the car and was shot three times in the chest. According to the investigation, the woman 'looked suspiciously at the ground.' She was unarmed, and no weapons were found near her that might have served as evidence she was trying to place an explosive device. Haaretz said commanders and soldiers on the ground say that the Central Command decided to copy operating methods used in Gaza in the West Bank. And while Israel has been concentrating its operations across the northern West Bank, killing, destroying and displacing Palestinians, the army is conducting large-scale arrest campaigns in other areas of the West Bank. Prisoners' affairs groups said on Monday the army detained 580 Palestinians in the West Bank in January. Most of the detainees were taken into custody from the northern city of Jenin and its refugee camp, where Israel has launched a deadly onslaught since Jan. 21, the Commission of Detainees' Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoner Society said in a joint statement. They said 17 women and 60 children were among the detainees. At least 14,500 arrests have been reported in the West Bank since the eruption of the Gaza war in 2023 and until the ceasefire was reached on January 19, 2025, said the prisoners' affairs groups. This figure excludes the number of arrests in Gaza that are estimated in thousands. Meanwhile, the UN agency that assists Palestine refugees UNRWA warned on Monday that the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the northern part of the West Bank is escalating at an alarming pace. Several refugee camps are nearly empty after Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall on January 21, making it the longest operation in the West Bank since the second intifada. The operation started in Jenin camp and then expanded to Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Al-Fara'a camps, displacing 40,000 Palestine refugees, it said. UNRWA said thousands of families have been forcibly displaced since Israel began carrying out large-scale operations in the West Bank in mid-2023. 'Repeated and destructive operations have rendered the northern refugee camps uninhabitable, trapping residents in cyclical displacement,' the agency stressed.
