Israel “will pay the price” for assaulting and humiliating five Palestinian women in Hebron, Palestinian factions have warned after Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that occupation forces had forced the ladies to strip naked in front of their families or be set on by dogs.
“The media reports about Israeli occupation’s violations in Hebron including breaking into Palestinian homes, terrorising Palestinian citizens, and attacking Palestinian women inside their homes with weapons and police dogs confirm once again that the rogue state of the Israeli occupation does not respect any international law or convention,” Hamas said in a statement that appeared on its official website.
“The Israeli occupation shows no interest in international law that protects people living under occupation, while the international community continues to ignore the unabated Israeli crimes.”
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“Hamas emphasises that these crimes are a serious escalation that will not pass without reprisals from the Palestinian people. All the Israeli occupation’s crimes are aimed at terrorising the Palestinian people and stopping their resistance and struggle for freedom. The Israeli occupation’s schemes are doomed to failure in the face of the steadfastness of the Palestinian people,” the movement said.
Islamic Jihad added: “The crime of assaulting women obliges every Palestinian carrying a weapon to aim this weapon at the chest and head of the occupation, and to avenge the free women against whom this grave violation occurred.”
The movement’s spokesperson, Tarik Salami, called on Palestinians in Hebron and other Palestinian cities to escalate their confrontations with the occupation.
“There is no way to deter the criminal soldiers of the occupation army, protect our people, and defend our honour and sanctities other than the path of jihad and resistance,” he added.
The Popular Resistance coalition movement said in a statement that the Israeli soldiers’ “crime” against five women in Hebron “will not go unpunished, and the enemy will pay the price for its foolishness.”
The movement called on “resistance fighters, revolutionaries, and young fighters, especially in Hebron, to respond to this crime immediately.”
An investigation by the Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem revealed yesterday that armed and masked Israeli female soldiers, accompanied by dogs, forced five Palestinian women from a family in Hebron to strip naked, threatening to set the dogs on them if they refused.