RAMALLAH(National Times)- A far-right Israeli lawmaker took a sledgehammer to a Palestinian memorial in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday while under military escort.
Footage circulating online showed Zvi Sukkot, who is also a settler and activist, smashing a monument commemorating “martyrs” in the Palestinian village of Madama in the northern West Bank, while soldiers stood nearby.
“A few days ago, I demanded that the military take action to remove the monuments commemorating terrorists in the murderers’ villages of Madama and Burin. Unfortunately, they remained in place. So, I went there myself and took action to remove them,” Sukkot posted on Facebook, along with a video of the act.
The Israeli military said Sukkot and his aides had conducted a “tour” of the area “with security provided by IDF soldiers who had been diverted from their operational activities for this purpose”.
“Contrary to the agreed-upon coordination, the participants acted deceptively and manipulatively, without authorisation, departing entirely from the approved framework, and began demolishing one of the monuments in Madama,” it added.
It said soldiers reported the incident to their commanders, who told them to stop the activity and “the participants were quickly escorted out of the village”.
In a statement, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military “is the sovereign authority in Judea and Samaria”, using the Biblical term for the occupied West Bank.
“Taking the law into one’s own hands, especially when it involves public figures, is a reprehensible practice that prevents the IDF from focusing on its missions of combatting terrorism and incitement to violence,” he added.
Israel raids UNRWA training centre
Meanwhile, Israeli forces began evicting a vocational training centre run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees in an east Jerusalem suburb on Tuesday, in its latest move targeting the beleaguered organisation.
It follows repeated warnings by UNRWA that Israeli authorities were threatening its Qalandia training centre, located between the east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Kafr Aqab and the Qalandia refugee camp.
The centre was established in 1952 and offers vocational training to around 340 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank every year, according to UNRWA.(left) Zvi Sukkot, a member of the Israeli Knesset, smashes a monument at Madama, in the occupied West Bank; while (right) journalists react after inhaling tear gas during a raid by Israeli forces on a UN-run vocational training centre near Ramallah.—AFP
“In accordance with my directive and following the law we passed, today the evacuation of the UNRWA compound in Kafr Aqab in Jerusalem has begun,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said.
Israel has repeatedly accused UNRWA of providing cover for Hamas fighters, claiming that some of its employees took part in the group’s Oct 7, 2023 attack.
Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, on Tuesday celebrated “making history!”
“Large forces of the Israel police are operating together with the relevant bodies to implement the law and remove UNRWA from the site,” he said on Telegram. He later posted a photo of the Israeli flag hoisted above the entrance to the training centre with the caption: “UNRWA in our hands.”
An AFP journalist at the scene on Tuesday said Israeli forces had closed the main road near the entrance to the Qalandia Training Centre, while forces inside the institute were moving from one building to another.
The journalist reported seeing a convoy of three civilian vehicles leaving the institute, escorted by Israeli forces.
West Bank settlers attack journalists
Separately, Israeli settlers in the West Bank on Tuesday attacked journalists reporting on tension with Palestinians, in violence that left at least five people injured, the reporters and medics said.
A three-person team from the AFP news agency had travelled to the village of Jannatah near Bethlehem to report on Israeli activists who conduct solidarity visits with Palestinians facing harassment by Israeli settlers, who recently blocked a road in the area.
After an altercation broke out between the settlers and activists, the Israeli military ordered journalists to leave what it called a “closed military zone”, at which point two additional cars full of settlers swooped in.
The settlers, many of them children, threw stones towards the journalists and activists. One journalist ducked a stone but then a child settler struck him in the chin with a stick, causing minor bleeding, he said.
The AFP journalists returned to see their two parked cars both damaged, with back windshields smashed in and tyres punctured.
