Hamas: Israel will ‘pay dearly’ for acts of aggressions by settlers in West Bank

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warns that Israel will pay a high price for allowing extremist settlers to terrorize and commit crimes against Palestinians across the occupied territories in West Bank.

Hamas said in a statement on Sunday that violence from regime forces has been accompanied by armed Israeli settler mobs attacking and lynching Palestinian citizens, and raiding and destroying Palestinian homes, vehicles, and businesses. 

“The occupation leaders and their settlers will pay dearly for persisting in this brutal aggression and our heroic people are able to defend themselves and retaliate,” the statement read.  

The statement further called for stepping up all forms of resistance to confront the brutal assaults and settler rampage through the West Bank.

The Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement also stressed that the latest retaliatory operation near the West Bank city of Nablus proves that Palestinians are continuing the struggle to liberate their land.

“The courageous Nablus operation that killed one of the so-called hilltop youths is a clear message that our people will not hesitate to defend themselves and their land,” Hamas said.

A 25-year-old Israeli settler was killed and two others were slightly hurt on Thursday as their car came under fire near the illegal Homesh outpost.

Palestinians are outraged by rising settler attacks on their villages, with backing from Israeli troops.

Israeli forces on Sunday morning arrested six Palestinians over a recent retaliatory attack that killed a settler and injured two others in northern West Bank.

Israeli rights group B’Tselem has documented hundreds of settlers' attacks against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank this year alone.

In a 43-page report released last month, the advocacy group revealed that Israel had been using settler violence as a “strategy” to take over the occupied West Bank and expel Palestinians from their own land.

According to B'tselem, Israel has for years clearly allowed its settlers to assault Palestinians and inflict damage on their property as one of its policies. This has included provision of military protection for the attackers, and in some cases troopers' active participation in the assault.

Tel Aviv has been criticized for its extensive use of lethal force and extrajudicial killing of Palestinians who do not pose an immediate threat to its forces or to settlers.

Israeli troops have on numerous occasions been caught on camera, brutally killing Palestinians, with the videos going viral online and sparking international condemnation.

The Israeli regime occupied the West Bank in 1967 before starting to dot the Palestinian territory with illegal settlements and severely restricting the Palestinians' freedom of movement there.

Palestinians want the West Bank as part of a future independent Palestinian state with East al-Quds as its capital.

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