In a first response after hours of silence, Bezalel Smotrich, who serves as a minister in the Defense Ministry criticized the IDF for its response to Jewish Israeli violence against soldiers and the allegation that live fire was directed at the rioters. "This is a red line that was crossed," Smotrich said, having failed to condemn the rioters.
Some 40 people entered the village of Malich near the West Bank city of Ramallah on Friday, days after a previous violent altercation there saw Palestinians killed and property damaged. They clashed with IDF troops, throwing stones and physically assaulting the force's commander.
Settlers clash with troops on Friday
"This has been an ongoing occurrence," the commander said. "These are the same people who set fire to property in the village, coming in brandishing their weapons. We saw them holding soldiers in a strangle hold and I was punched. We had stones hurled at us and they rammed our vehicles. Other cars had their tires slashed. There was a danger to our lives," he said.
Get the Ynetnews app on your smartphone: Google Play: https://bit.ly/4eJ37pE | Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/3ZL7iNv
The IDF said an investigation was underway into the use of live fire against the Jewish attackers. "Initial results of the probe indicate no shots were fired at Israeli civilians," the IDF said.
3 View gallery
IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir meets officers after violet settlers assaulted troops
(Photo: IDF)
But the investigation continued into a separate incident in the same region when masked Israeli civilians hurled stones at a military vehicle and warning shots were fired by the force near one of them, a 14-year-old boy.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his government condemned the violent Israelis and their violent attack against troops.
A senior IDF officer said many of the rioters, who came from a recently built illegal outpost near Ramallah, on private Palestinian land, came from outside the West Bank.