JERUSALEM: Israel’s prime minister met with top security officials to assess a rising tide of Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, an Israeli official said Friday, as he faces increasing US pressure to halt the flare-up that could undermine Washington’s peace plan for Gaza.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his security cabinet late Thursday, bringing together officials from the military, the country’s domestic security service Shin Bet and police to discuss the recent spike in violence, according to an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to talk about a closed-door meeting.
The Prime Minister’s Office did not immediately respond to request for comment about what was discussed at the meeting. The Israeli official said there would be a follow-up meeting.
Washington is hoping Israel can contain the rising settler violence to avoid jeopardizing the UN Security Council-approved US plan for Gaza, which authorizes an international force to provide security and envisions a possible path to an independent Palestinian state.
Netanyahu has called the perpetrators “a handful of extremists” and urged law enforcement to pursue them for “the attempt to take the law into their own hands.” But rights groups and Palestinians say the problem is far greater than a few bad apples, and attacks have become a daily phenomenon across the territory.
