Gantz asks Blinken to reconsider US sanction of Israeli battalion: Axios reporter
BREAKING: Israeli Minister Benny Gantz spoke on the phone with Secretary of State Blinken and asked him to reconsider the decision to sanction the IDF "Netzah Yehuda" battalion, Gantz's office said https://t.co/v0TbDs48lu
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) April 21, 2024
Is the Israeli military unit facing possible US sanctions part of the settler movement?
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/6/who-are-israeli-settlers-and-why-do-they-live-on-palestinian-lands
The Netzah Yehuda, or “Judea Forever,” is a unit for ultra-Orthodox Jewish soldiers located in the occupied West Bank. In recent years, it has become a destination for radical right-wing settlers.
Settlers are Israeli citizens who live in illegal settlements on private Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
In 2022, around the time the US opened its investigation into the unit over incidents of violence against Palestinian civilians, Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an article describing the batallion’s “long history of bad behaviour, driven by an ideology imbibed from the settler movement”.
An Israeli defence official who had spoken to Haaretz was quoted as saying that dissolving the Netzah Yehuda “would be a declaration of war for the settler leadership”, adding that “Their view on the ground is that this battalion belongs to them, that it’s a force that works for the settlement enterprise”.
Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, has articulated that there is a clear ideological link between the settler communities and the soldiers serving in the brigade. “As a settler, I’m telling you that the residents are happy every time that Netzah Yehuda is deployed in their sector,” Smotrich wrote on social media.
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/3/19/how-israeli-settlers-are-expanding-illegal-outposts-amid-gaza-war
UN expresses concern about violence in occupied West Bank
Tor Wennesland, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, has said he is “gravely concerned by heightened violence across the occupied West Bank”.
In a post on X, Wennesland called for avoiding “further escalation – attacks on civilians must stop, including settler violence.” “As the war in Gaza continues and regional instability mounts, West Bank stability is essential to keep alive prospects for peace,” he added.
Funeral of Palestinians killed in Israeli raid in Nur Shams refugee camp
Israeli troops kill Palestinian woman in Jordan Valley
The Israeli military has said its troops shot a Palestinian woman who attempted to stab soldiers at a checkpoint in the Jordan Valley.
It said none of its forces were hurt in the incident at the Hamra checkpoint, but the woman died after they stopped ambulances from reaching her, Palestinian medical sources said. The same source identified the woman as Manal Sawafta, 40, from Tubas, in the northeastern occupied West Bank.
