WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday spoke out against retaliatory attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank following the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. He also said he would redouble his commitment to working toward a two-state solution to end the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Biden said the attacks by “extremist settlers” amounted to “pouring gasoline on the fires already burning in the Middle East since the Hamas attack.”
“It has to stop. They must be held accountable. “This has to stop now,” Biden said at the start of a news conference with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who was honored with a state visit to Washington.
According to Palestinian authorities, settler violence against Palestinians has increased since the Hamas attack and Palestinians have been killed by settlers. Human rights groups say settlers set fire to cars and attacked several small Bedouin communities, forcing them to evacuate to other areas.
The West Bank Protection Consortium, a coalition of non-governmental organizations and donor countries including the European Union, says hundreds of Palestinians have been forcibly displaced due to settler violence in the West Bank since October 7. In addition, there have been over 1,100 displaced people since 2022.
Deadly violence erupts in the West Bank as the Israeli military pursues Palestinian militants following the Hamas attack from Gaza.
The violence threatens to open another front in the two-week-old war and puts pressure on the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the West Bank and is deeply unpopular among Palestinians, particularly because it cooperates with Israel on security matters.
Biden again condemned the brutality of the Hamas attack that killed 1,400 Israelis, saying he believed Hamas was driven in part by a desire to support U.S.-led efforts to normalize Israel’s relations with some of its Arab neighbors , including Saudi Arabia, to be reversed.
The president also said Israelis, Palestinians and their partners must work toward a two-state solution after the end of the Israel-Hamas conflict.
“Israelis and Palestinians alike deserve to live side by side in security, dignity and peace,” Biden said, adding: “When this crisis is over, there must be a vision for what comes next. And in our opinion it has to be a two-state solution.”
More than 6,500 Palestinians have been killed in retaliatory strikes in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry. Biden said he had doubts about the accuracy of Hamas’s death count but stressed that it was crucial for Israel to be cautious in its response to minimize civilian deaths.
“I am sure innocents have been killed and that is the price of waging war,” Biden said. “Israel should be incredibly careful to ensure that it focuses on pursuing the people who are promoting this war,” Biden said.
Biden also said that he had not directly asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for assurances that Israel would hold off an expected ground invasion of Gaza before hostages could be released.
“What I told him is that he should do this if possible to get these people out safely. It’s their decision,” Biden said at a White House news conference. “But I didn’t ask for it. I pointed out to him that if it was real, it should be done.” According to the White House, about ten Americans remain missing during the Israel-Hamas war.
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Associated Press writer Josh Boak contributed to this report.