An Israeli reservist was killed in his car by Palestinian fire in the West Bank. This led to a punitive operation in a Palestinian village where Franceinfo special correspondents were located.
Black clouds of smoke cover the small town of Deir Sharaf. Fires were lit in several shops and warehouses on both sides of the street. Cars burn too. No resident really risks leaving the house, but outside a group of settlers is praying and obeying the orders of one man, a rabbi. “We don’t want another murder. So we came here and stopped the traffic. Many soldiers came. And now the army is blocking the Arabs,” he explains.
In fact, the Israeli army was deployed to protect the settlers. The situation in the occupied West Bank is explosive, and incidents have been increasing for several days. On Thursday, November 2, an Israeli reservist was killed in his car by Palestinian fire in the Nablus region. The reaction was immediate: a punitive action against this Palestinian village. “God gave this land to us, not to the Palestinians,” explains a young settler, around twenty years old. “We live here and we will continue to live here, it is our sacred land. The Arabs don’t want the Jews. “If we live here, they want to kill us,” he adds.
Following the death of an Israeli who was killed near the settlement of Einav in the north of the country #WestBankUsing Palestinian fire, dozens of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian village of Deir Sharaf, a few kilometers away, setting cars and shops on fire. pic.twitter.com/qVP4ZsD7vz
— Gilles Gallinaro (@GallinaroG) November 2, 2023
A Palestinian villager who works with his father in a small shop became frightened when he saw the settlers arriving. “They had a hateful look. They looked at us like we were guilty,” he says. “Then the number of settlers increased.”
“The settlers went to neighbors’ houses. They set fire. They behaved like barbarians.”
A Palestinian villager
at franceinfo
“If they think they’re going to destroy us, they’re making a big mistake.”
Five kilometers from Deir Sharaf, a junction of two roads. They lead to two Palestinian towns surrounded by settlements. A woman holds an Israeli flag in her hand. Her name is Shoshana, she lives in a Jewish colony, the first to settle in Samaria in 1975, she proudly tells us.
Shoshana came here after the death of this 29-year-old reservist, killed on the street by Palestinian fire. “I hope I don’t know him. When I heard that a Jew had been killed, I picked up my flag and told myself that I would come here to remember him,” she admits. That could have been me, my husband, my son.
Shoshana came with an Israeli flag to remember the Israeli reservist killed by Palestinian fire on October 28, 2023. (GILLES GALLINARO / RADIO FRANCE)
His son is currently serving in the army in southern Israel. “We have to be very strong. It is our mission to fight terrorism,” she defends. “If they think they’re going to break us, they’re making a big mistake.” “We’re at war,” Shoshana concludes. “Against whom?” he is asked. “The devil.”
Tensions between Palestinians and Israelis are at an all-time high following the death of a West Bank settler, a report from our special correspondents Valérie Crova and Gilles Gallinaro
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