The leader of Israel’s Democrats party, Yair Golan, warned Saturday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is turning the occupied West Bank into a “powder keg,” Anadolu reports.
His remarks came a day after Israeli occupiers, protected by the army, attacked the town of Tell near Nablus in the northern West Bank, killing four Palestinians and injuring four others, according to Palestinian sources.
Two Israelis were also killed in a shooting as residents confronted the attack, according to Palestinian and Israeli sources.
Following the incident, Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz ordered a “wide-scale” military offensive in the occupied territory.
In a post on the US social media company X, Golan accused the government and far-right ministers Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir of “deliberately” creating an “explosive reality” in the West Bank.
He said occupiers had for months systematically sought to provoke friction, inflame tensions and drag the Israeli army and the state into a broader confrontation.
Instead of stopping them, Netanyahu’s government provides them with “support and encouragement” while announcing the establishment of additional settlement outposts and “illegal farms,” Golan said.
“This deepens the danger and increases escalation instead of distancing civilians from friction points,” he added.
Netanyahu and Katz are turning the West Bank into “a powder keg that threatens Israel’s security,” Golan said.
He warned that the price of escalation is “paid in blood,” particularly by Israeli soldiers sent to confront the consequences of what he called a “reckless policy.”
Golan called for a “comprehensive investigation” into the violence near the Havat Gilad settlement and expressed regret over the deaths of both Israelis and Palestinians.
He demanded the arrest and prosecution of everyone who broke the law or participated in the violence.
His remarks came amid continued Israeli escalation across the West Bank. The Israeli army detained more than 75 Palestinians during raids Saturday, including over 40 in Tel, while eight Palestinians were injured in an attack by occupiers on the village of Far’ata, east of Qalqilya.
Since October 2023, Israeli forces and occupiers have killed more than 1,182 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, injured thousands and detained around 24,000, according to official Palestinian figures.
