Palestine Foreign Ministry: Israel PM’s demand for settlers to bear arms incites violence

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has called on all countries not to be drawn into misleading Israeli propaganda regarding the truce and has reiterated the need to hold the Israeli occupation government responsible for escalating violence.

In a statement, the Foreign Ministry indicated that the Israeli intentions and plans aim to escalate the conflict to serve the occupation’s interests and its expansionist colonial projects in the land of the State of Palestine.

The ministry added that this proves the deception of the Israeli calls for calm and its claims of keenness for a truce, in a misleading attempt to hold Palestinians responsible for the escalation in advance.

It condemned the crimes of the occupation in Jenin and Bethlehem, which led to the deaths of Sanad Abu Atiyeh (17), Yazid Al-Saadi (23) and Nidal Jaafara (30), as well as several citizens being injured by live bullets.

The ministry also condemned the Israeli escalation resulting from settlers’ brutal attacks on Palestinian citizens, their land, property, homes, crops, trees and holy sites. This included Itamar Ben-Gvir’s storming of the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the imposition of restrictions preventing citizens from accessing Al-Aqsa Mosque to pray during the month of Ramadan.

The ministry considers that the demands of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and his Minister of Interior Aylet Shaked for Israelis to take up arms is the clearest official incitement of violence against Palestinian civilians. It is further evidence of the magnitude of the apartheid regime that the occupation government is intensifying and expanding in occupied Jerusalem.

The Palestinian Foreign Ministry held the Israeli government fully and directly responsible for its deliberate escalation and the resulting violations and crimes against Palestinians, warning of the disastrous consequences, especially Israel’s Judaisation of Al-Aqsa Mosque during the month of Ramadan.

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