A Foreign Ministry statement condemned the illegal presence of hundreds of thousands of settlers on the West Bank and their continued crimes against Palestinian civilians.

The Foreign Ministry criticized the expansion and construction of new settlements in the territory and in the eastern part of the city of Jerusalem, considering that they impede any peace agreement.

“The extremist movements of those colonies transformed their individual attacks into collective incursions with the official support of Israel,” it stressed.

In this regard, the ministry affirmed that the violations and crimes carried out by these people are no longer random but are part of a clear distribution of roles with the Army.

Earlier this year, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories (B’Tselem) claimed that settler violence against Palestinians is yet another method Tel Aviv uses to control land in the West Bank through a variety of acts including physical assaults, stone throwing, threats and harassment, damage to trees and crops, car vandalism, road blockades and even the use of live ammunition.

The Israeli authorities, including the security forces and the law enforcement system, are fully aware of this reality, but they allow and support such violence and then enjoy the result, B’Tselem stressed.

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