Thousands of Israelis led by at least seven Cabinet ministers marched on Monday to an evacuated West Bank settlement, in a defiant signal that Israel’s most right-wing government in history is determined to accelerate settlement building on occupied lands despite international opposition.
The mass rally also threatened to further raise tensions that have been heightened by days of unrest across the region over a contested Jerusalem holy site. In new violence, Israel troops killed a 15-year-old Palestinian boy during an arrest raid in the occupied West Bank, while a 48-year-old Israeli woman died of wounds sustained in an attack last week that killed two of her daughters.Monday’s march took place in the northern West Bank — the scene of repeated violence in recent months.
Thousands of Israeli police and army forces were reportedly deployed to secure the march, which added to the already combustible atmosphere that has accompanied the overlap of major Jewish and Muslim holy days. Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have reached a fever pitch in recent weeks surrounding the Jerusalem shrine.
The march to Eviatar, an unauthorised settlement outpost in the northern West Bank that was evacuated by the previous Israeli government in 2021, was being led by hard-line ultranationalist Jewish
settlers.
Daniella Weiss, another settler leader, told Kan public radio that the ministers’ participation in the march could be a “therapy for the government to free yourselves from the dictates of the US and Europe” concerning West Bank settlement. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu heads the most religious and ultranationalist government in Israel’s history. Several members of his Cabinet, including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir — both West Bank settlers — and at least 20 members of Knesset were taking part in the march. Speaking at the march, Ben-Gvir said that “we are here to say that the Israeli nation is strong” and that “we are here and will remain here.” Visits to Eviatar have been officially banned by the military since its evacuation, but that prohibition has been loosely enforced in recent months. Israeli army spokesman Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said the military approved Monday’s march, saying it would be “highly monitored and highly protected.”
Scores of families, nearly all of them Orthodox Jews, many of them pushing baby strollers, took part in the march. Tensions between Israel and the Palestinians have soared following last week’s police raid on Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The hilltop compound where the mosque sits is the emotional ground zero of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For Jews, it is known as the Temple Mount, their faith’s holiest site and the place where two Temples stood in antiquity. For Muslims, it is known as the Noble Sanctuary, home of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam.