Katz promises action against those opposing Israel
Israel’s foreign minister says his government will continue to maintain the “status and national honour” of Israel after Norway closed down its diplomatic office for the Palestinian Authority.
The office in the occupied West Bank was shut down following the Israeli decision to revoke the accreditation of the Norwegian diplomats working there.
Katz wrote on X that Israel did so “due to Norway’s recognition of a Palestinian-Hamas state after the October 7 massacre, and its support for the issuing of arrest warrants against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli officials”.
Settlers intimidate Palestinians, set fire to lands in Jordan Valley
Israeli settlers continue to harass and intimidate Palestinians amid rising attacks in the occupied West Bank’s Jordan Valley.
Settlers began fencing off a dirt road that leads to the homes of local residents in Nab Ghazal in the northern Jordan Valley area in an effort to force them out, the Wafa news agency quotes a local official as saying.
Israeli settlers also set fire to mountainous lands in Khirbet Yarza east of Tubas in the West Bank, with local Palestinians fearing the fire would reach their homes.
In Umm al-Jimal where several similar settler intimidation incidents have taken place recently under protection from Israeli military forces, 14 Palestinians have been forcibly displaced from their homes in the past few days.
Smotrich, Ben-Gvir supervised forced displacement of 40 Bedouin communities: Ministry
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry has expressed “great concern” for the forced displacement of the Bedouin communities throughout the occupied Palestinian territory, especially in Masafer Yatta and the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.
It said in a statement that the attacks by the Israeli settlers against the communities come with the support and protection of the army and the direct supervision of Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.
The latest displacement of the last Palestinian Bedouin family came in Umm al-Jimal in the northern Jordan Valley, bringing the number of forcibly displaced Bedouin communities to 40, the ministry said.
“The Ministry considers this crime to be a crime of ethnic cleansing, and falls within the framework of the ongoing gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank and emptying it of its inhabitants and original owners,” it added.
The ministry stressed that the deterrent international sanctions must include “not only the extremist settlers and their armed militias, but also the ministers and officials in the Israeli government who provide protection, support, funding and backing, such as Smotrich and Ben-Gvir”.
