Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz refused on Thursday to label an attack on a Palestinian village by illegal settlers as “terrorism.”
“I don’t consider this terrorism,” Katz told Israel’s Army Radio.
Hundreds of illegal Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Duma in the West Bank city of Nablus on Tuesday evening, injuring seven people and vandalizing homes and properties, according to local authorities.
Several countries around the world, including the US, have labeled settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as “terrorism.”
Katz boasted about his decision to abolish administrative detention orders for Israeli settlers accused of attacking Palestinians.
“It is good that I have canceled the administrative detention orders,” he said.
Currently, more than 3,400 people, the vast majority of them Palestinians, are being held in administrative detention, according to figures from the Israel Prison Service.
Tensions have been running high across the West Bank, where at least 942 Palestinians have been killed and nearly 7,000 injured in attacks by the Israeli army and illegal settlers since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The International Court of Justice declared Israel’s longstanding occupation of Palestinian territories illegal in July. It demanded the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.