Israeli security forces block rally supporting torched West Bank town

The Israeli military fired stun grenades and blocked hundreds of Israeli left-wing activists from staging a solidarity rally Friday in a Palestinian town that was set ablaze by hard-line Jewish settlers earlier this week, protesters said.

Activists from Israeli rights organizations said soldiers and border policemen prevented busloads of protesters from entering the occupied West Bank town of Huwara, which still bears the scars of Sunday’s settler-led attack. In one case, soldiers shoved and wrestled with one of the demonstrators before briefly detaining him, said Sally Abed from the group Standing Together.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Hundreds of settlers, some armed with knives and guns, rampaged through Hawara Sunday and torched dozens of homes and businesses after two Israeli brothers were shot and killed nearby. One Palestinian was killed in the mob assault.

On Friday, some 500 people holding signs of solidarity and Palestinian flags, mostly older men and women, both Jews and Arab citizens, stepped off the buses and headed down the highway toward Hawara in defiance the army’s orders.

Palestinian motorists honked in support. The protesters chanted, “No to occupation” and “End Jewish terror.” Facing the mass of police and troops deployed to halt their peaceful protest, they shouted, “Where were you when Hawara happened?,” referring to the intense rampage that went largely unchecked and unpunished.

The Israeli army has said that the ferocity and scope of the settler mobs caught them by surprise. The Defense Ministry has sent two suspected ringleaders of the violence to administrative detention.

In response to the crowds streaming toward Huwara, the Israeli military fired stun grenades tried to stop the march of settlers, said Abed.

Unlike Palestinian cities like Ramallah that are under the control of the Palestinian Authority, Huwara is mostly under Israeli security control.

Earlier in the day, a delegation of European diplomats toured Hawara and a neighboring village to survey the damage and denounce the mayhem.

A chorus of condemnations over the rampage has poured in from around the world, particularly after Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich said Wednesday that HUwara should be “erased.” Smotrich, whose party wants Israel to formally annex large parts of the West Bank, later backtracked on those remarks.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry on Friday called Smotrich’s remarks a “dangerous and unacceptable incitement of violence.”