I’d execute Palestinian fighter’s family: Israeli legislator

Al Jazeera
July 27, 2017

Jerusalem, Jul 27: Palestinians have criticised an Israeli legislator who said he would "execute" a Palestinian assailant's family as revenge for an operation that killed three Israelis in an occupied West Bank settlement.

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In a video posted (Hebrew) over the weekend on his official Facebook account, which has more than 82,000 likes, Israeli Knesset Member MK Oren Hazan said he would demolish the home of Palestinian assailant Omar al-Abed and "execute" his family.

Mustafa Barghouti, the former Palestinian information minister and general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative political party, said Hazan's comments expose "how deeply ingrained racism" has become in Israel through "its system of apartheid and occupation".

"It's very dangerous," he told Al Jazeera by telephone, "and these types of comments are overlooked by many parties in the international community."

Hazan said in the video: "I want to be honest without sounding too extreme, god forbid, but if it was up to me I would've gone to the terrorist's house yesterday, grabbed him and his whole family and executed them all together."

He went on to say that "an execution is the lightest sentence" that Abed could receive.

Abed, 20, hopped over the fence of Halamish, a Jewish-only settlement in the central West Bank, and stabbed three Israelis to death last week as tensions soared over Israel's crackdown on entry to the al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem.

Hazan complained that Abed, who Israeli forces shot, has been hospitalised in an Israeli facility, adding: "Let him [Abed] die, let him wallow in his own blood. They don't have a right to live, they don't have the right to even exist, and I hope that everyone will say that with me."

He is a member of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party.

On Tuesday, the Israeli army arrested Ibtisam al-Abed, the assailant's mother, for saying she was "proud" of her son in a video shared widely on social media outlets.

She had also told the Israeli daily Haaretz that she did not support the attack.

In the Facebook video, Hazan also blamed Hanin Zoabi and Ahmed Tibi, Palestinian legislators in the Israeli Knesset, for supposedly inciting Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

At the time of publication, Hazan had not replied to Al Jazeera's request for a comment.

Reprimanded

Barghouti said: "This shows the level of incitement on the Israeli side, while they accuse Palestinians of incitement. It's not the first time: We're talking about racism in every political speech and every television broadcast."

Hazan has been reprimanded in the past for violent rhetoric, including a recent threat to Palestinian MK Aida Touma-Sliman and other similar comments. "We will erase your smile from your face ... We will erase your ugly smile from your face," he reportedly told her recently at a Knesset function.

On Tuesday, the Knesset's Ethics Committee voted to reprimand Hazan for those comments. It is unclear what that punishment will entail.

The far-right legislator also sparked controversy when he pledged his support for France's populist politician Marine Le Pen earlier this year, prompting criticism from Israelis and French Jewish legislators.

"[US President Donald] Trump said the United States belongs to the Americans, and so Le Pen also says that France belongs to the French," Hazan said on an Israeli radio show at the time.

"This is the way to stop radical Islam, and to stop France from becoming a Palestinian state in Europe, and that is why I support it."

Amjad Iraqi, international advocacy coordinator at the Haifa-based Adalah Legal Center, said that there is "no accountability for Israeli public officials" who engage in incitement against Palestinians.

"The statements by Hazan and others are part of this context and double standard about what's interpreted as incitement and what constitutes free speech," he said, referring to Israel's frequent arrests of Palestinian activists for social media posts.

"It essentially legitimises racist attitudes towards Palestinians," he said. "It goes hand in hand with state policies to repress Palestinian efforts to achieve their human rights."

'New Nakba'

On Saturday, Israel's regional cooperation minister, Tzachi Hanegbi, warned Palestinians of a "new Nakba", referring to the 1948 establishment of Israel and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homeland, as reported by the 972 blog at the time.

"You've already paid that crazy price twice for your leaders," he wrote on Facebook, alluding to the 1948 and 1967 Middle East wars. "Don't try us again because the result won't be any different."

Back in March 2015, Avigdor Lieberman, Israeli defence minister and leader of the Yisrael Beitenu party, said Palestinian citizens of Israel who oppose the country should be "beheaded" for their disloyalty.

In July 2014, at the outset of Israel's 51-day military offensive against the besieged Gaza Strip, Israeli politician Ayelet Shaked approvingly republished on Facebook an article by Israeli speech writer and Netanyahu confidant Uri Elitzur labeling "the entire Palestinian people" as "the enemy".

Shaked later became Israel's justice minister, a post she holds until today.

The article called for Palestinian mothers to be killed because they give birth to "little snakes".

"This is an article by the late Uri Elitzur, which was written 12 years ago, but remained unpublished. It is as relevant today as it was at the time," Shaked wrote in the Facebook post, which she later deleted.

Nadia Hijab, executive director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, described what she called an uptick in incitement as "pretty typical", arguing that the "collective punishment" proposed by Hazan and others violates the Geneva Convention.

"In retaliation to attacks, the homes of family members are demolished and entire families made homeless, villages are put under curfew and blockaded, and [their] family members are arrested," she told Al Jazeera.

"Hazan is taking collective punishment to the next level."

'Tipping point'

On Monday, Israel decided to remove metal detectors it had placed at the entrance of Jerusalem's Old City to restrict entry into the al-Aqsa Mosque as protests intensified in the city.

Jamal Zahalka, a Palestinian legislator in the Israeli Knesset, accused Israel of an "unprecedented level of incitement" and attempting to divert the blame to Palestinians who have demonstrated against the measures.

"They lit the fires, and now they want to say that we're responsible for it," he told Al Jazeera by telephone. "But it will never be quiet as long as the occupation continues."

Danny Danon, Israeli ambassador to the UN, accused the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority of promoting violence on Monday.

"The [Security] Council must demand real action by [Palestinian President] Mahmoud Abbas, make him stop his tacit support for terror, force him to end this unbearable wave of violence and make him do so immediately before the lives of more innocent victims are lost," he said.

Palestinians have been protesting Israeli measures to limit entry to the al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Israel, amid a sharp uptick in violence in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

On Wednesday, Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, urged the Security Council to take action to protect Palestinians and their holy sites from Israel's "reckless and destructive agenda".

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News Network
April 13,2024

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New Delhi, May 13: Warmongering Israel is bracing for a potential direct attack by Iran as warnings grow of retaliation for the provocative killing last week of a senior officer in Iran's embassy in Damascus. US and other intelligence assessments have said the retaliation could come as soon as Sunday. The unprecedented attack could trigger an all-out regional war.

US President Joe Biden has also warned Israel that he expects a strike from Iran soon, but has warned the clerical state not to attack.

"I don't want to get into secure information but my expectation is sooner than later," Biden told reporters after an event.

Asked what his message was to Iran on striking Israel, Biden said, "Don't."

An assault from Iranian soil has emerged as one of the main scenarios expected by the Jewish state and its allies, according to reports by the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg. A bombardment with drones and precision missiles could come within the next 24 hours, the reports said citing people familiar with the matter.

Any Iranian attack on Israel would likely be a combination of missiles and drones, based on current capabilities outlined in a new Defense Intelligence Agency Worldwide Threat assessment released late Thursday.

The regime "has a substantial inventory of ballistic and cruise missiles capable of striking targets as far as 2,000 kilometers from its borders," the agency said.

The US has rushed additional military assets to protect Israel and American forces in the region. The country has moved two Navy destroyers to the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, according to a Navy official. One is the USS Carney, which was recently in the Red Sea performing air defence against Houthi drones and anti-ship missiles.

America has also doubled down its diplomatic efforts to rein in hostilities in the region, which has been on the edge since Israel launched a mega offensive on Palestine to destroy the militant organisation Hamas.

US officials have been working to send messages to Iran, including through an established Swiss channel, while talking to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and other governments. Biden has also sent the head of US Central Command, General Michael Kurilla, to Israel for urgent talks on the threat from Iran.

The 'shadow war' between the two Middle Eastern countries heated up when an Israeli airstrike hit the Iran consulate in Damascus, killing seven people, including two generals. Iran immediately issued a statement saying that it is prepared for war and will deliver a "slap" to Israel.

Israel has been on alert since then, canceling home leave for combat troops, calling up reserves, and bolstering air defenses. Its military scrambled navigational signals over Tel Aviv on Thursday to disrupt GPS-navigated drones or missiles that might be fired at the country.

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News Network
April 22,2024

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Some 62,000 Israeli settlers have fled areas in the northern sector of the 1948 Israeli-occupied lands amid fear of strikes by Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement in retaliation for the bloody onslaught on Gaza, latest reports have revealed.

Lebanon’s al-Mayadeen television news channel, citing Israeli media outlets, reported on Sunday evening that the number of settlers that have evacuated the area as a result of Hezbollah’s operations now stands at a staggering 62,000.

The report noted that 30,000 of the settlers have evacuated northern occupied Palestine on their own as fears are mounting among the residents that Hezbollah fighters continue to carry out daily operations with no signs that they are deterred by any action the Israeli army is taking.

Israeli media outlets further noted that 40% of the evacuees are considering no return to the region.

Moreover, 38% of those who voluntarily left the area, no longer intend to return to their previous places of residence in the northern occupied territories.

This comes as Hezbollah targeted a facility housing Israeli soldiers in the Shomera settlement earlier on Sunday with a barrage of rockets.

The Lebanese resistance group also struck surveillance devices newly installed around the Dovev military barracks, completely destroying the hardware.

Hezbollah said in a statement that it attacked the deployment positions of Israeli soldiers south of the Jal al-Alam site, using heavy-caliber Burkan (Volcano) missiles.

In another statement, the resistance group announced that its fighters struck surveillance equipment at the Misgav Am military site, which Israeli forces had lately re-positioned.

Surveillance equipment at the al-Malkiya base was also targeted and destroyed, it said, adding that the operation was carried out with a salvo of rockets.

The Israeli regime has repeatedly attacked southern Lebanon since October 7, when it launched a genocidal war on Gaza that has killed at least 34,097 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

In retaliation, Hezbollah has launched near-daily rocket attacks on Israeli positions.

At least 349 people have been killed on the Lebanese border, including 68 civilians.

Hezbollah has already fought off two Israeli wars against Lebanon in 2000 and 2006. The resistance forced the regime to retreat in both conflicts.

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News Network
April 14,2024

Qatar and Kuwait have banned any use of their airspace and air bases for attacks against Iran amid heightened tensions between Iran and the Israeli regime following an Israeli attack early this month on an Iranian diplomatic mission in Syria.

Reports on Saturday indicated that both Qatar and Kuwait had issued directives to the United States stressing that the US military will not be allowed to use air bases in the two countries for carrying out any potential airstrikes on Iran.

Qatar and Kuwait have also indicated that their airspace will not be available for any military action against Iran.

The US has military aircraft at the Ali Al Salem Air Base and Ahmed Al Jaber Air Base in Kuwait. The Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is also the largest US air base in the West Asia region.

The directives issued by Iran’s two Arab neighbors come amid reports showing that Iran is preparing to respond to an Israeli airstrike that killed two of its senior military commanders in its consulate in the Syrian capital Damascus on April 1.

Washington has urged Iran to deescalate while saying that it will defend Israel in case it is attacked.

Iran, which has no direct relations with the US, has called on regional Arab countries to advise the US not to interfere if Israel is attacked.

Countries have been wary of a major confrontation in the region more than six months into an Israeli onslaught on the Gaza Strip.

Reports show they have already limited the ability of the US to use their airspace and air bases for attacks on resistance groups that are allied with Iran and have been attacking Israeli and US interests in the region since the start of the Israeli aggression on Gaza.

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