Jerusalem [Israel], November 14: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was worried that recent violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank could spill over and undermine US-backed peace efforts in Gaza.
"I hope not," Rubio told reporters after a meeting of Group of Seven foreign ministers in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Canada, when asked whether the events could endanger the Gaza ceasefire.
"We don't expect it to. We'll do everything we can to make sure it doesn't happen."
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and army chief Eyal Zamir have also condemned burgeoning Israeli settler attacks against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in a rare public rebuke of what has become a daily cycle of violence often backed by the Israeli military.
Herzog on Wednesday described the attacks as "shocking and serious," adding a rare and powerful voice to what has been heavily muted criticism by top Israeli officials of the settler violence, which involves killings and beatings of civilians and destruction of their property.
On Thursday, a group of Israeli settlers vandalised a mosque near the town of Salfit in the occupied West Bank, according to the Wafa news agency.
Quoting a local activist, the agency reported that Israeli settlers poured flammable material at the entrance of the mosque and wrote racial slurs on its walls. The report said residents helped put the fire out before it spread through the mosque.
Dozens of masked Israeli settlers attacked Palestinian villages in the West Bank on Tuesday, setting fire to vehicles and other property before fighting with Israeli soldiers.
Herzog said the violence, committed by a "handful" of perpetrators, "crosses a red line", adding in a social media post that "all state authorities must act decisively to eradicate the phenomenon." Zamir also strongly condemned the recent sharp increase in attacks.
"We are aware of the recent violent incidents in which Israeli civilians attacked Palestinians and Israelis," Zamir was quoted on Wednesday by the Israeli army as saying.
"I strongly condemn them," he said, adding that the Israeli military "will not tolerate criminal behaviour by a small minority that tarnishes the law-abiding public". Israeli forces and settlers carried out 2,350 attacks across the West Bank last month in an "ongoing cycle of terror", the Palestinian Authority's Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) reported last week.
Source: Qatar Tribune
