Member of Hamas’s political bureau Hisham Qasem has said that the crimes that were committed by Jewish settlers in recent days in the West Bank entail action to escalate the resistance and provide protection for the Palestinian people.
In a statement on Monday Qasem explained that hordes of extremist settlers launched attacks in the last hours on Palestinian citizens in several areas of Masafer Yatta in southern al-Khalil.
&ldquoThey beat citizens and shepherds and one of them tried to run over a herd of sheep right under the noses of Israeli army forces who hastened to close the area to other Palestinian citizens&rdquo Qasem said.
The Hamas official added that settlers also recently dumped their wastewater into Palestinian agricultural lands in western Bethlehem causing large-scale air water and soil pollution calling on international environmental and human rights organizations to condemn such practices.
He also pointed out that the Israeli water company Mekorot recently reduced the quantities of water transferred to the provinces of al-Khalil and Bethlehem and provided nearby illegal settlements with additional water supplies.
He stressed that the exposure of Palestinian citizens in the occupied territories to different violations at the hands of settlers and the Israeli occupation authority entails more field and political action against them.
He called for necessarily giving the Palestinian resistance in the West Bank a free hand to defend its people and land affirming that the resistance is the only means capable of curbing the Israeli violations.
