GAZA STRIP (Dispatches) – The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called for the international community to take “tangible” measures regarding far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s racism.
In a statement, Hamas condemned racist remarks made by Ben-Gvir to an Israeli TV about his alleged right to move across the occupied West Bank territories.
Ben-Gvir claimed he, his wife and children has the “has the right as colonial settlers to free movement across the occupied West Bank,” while at the same time he denies Palestinians’ right to free movement.
“These remarks,” Hamas said, “reflect the Israeli regime’s fascist ethnic cleansing policy against the Palestinian people.”
Ben-Gvir, in an interview with Channel 12, said that the “Israeli settler right to move across the occupied West Bank is more important than the right of the indigenous Palestinians.”
Hamas stressed that the Palestinian people “will not leave their lands, and the Israeli occupation’s plans to displace them are doomed to fail.”
At the same time, Hamas reiterated that the Palestinian people “will not allow the occupation leaders and colonial settlers to implement their colonial projects on the occupied Palestinian territories.”
Concluding its statement, Hamas said: “The international community must work towards holding the Israeli occupation leaders and colonial settlers accountable for their crimes against the Palestinian people and violations of international law.”
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry also said in a press statement that it condemned in the strongest terms “the racist statements and stances of Ben-Gvir.”
“Such statements are considered as an incitement to perpetuate the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, deepen settlements, and impose more forms of injustice against the Palestinians,” the ministry statement added.
“Ben-Gvir’s remarks summarize the current situation and the daily life of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including East Al-Quds, as well as the unjust siege on our people in the Gaza Strip,” it noted, adding “the Israeli settlements in East Al-Quds and the West Bank have turned the life of the Palestinians into a continuous daily journey of torment.”
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement and various other Palestinian factions have also condemned Ben-Gvir’s remarks.