Eyewitnesses said that the minister, settlers, and soldiers stormed the summit of Mount Tarousa, and that they lit candles to mark Hanukkah, which began Sunday evening and continues until Monday.
Witnesses added that the Israeli occupation army closed a vital road linking the town of Dura with the towns of Deir Samet and Beit Awa, located to its west, and prevented the movement of Palestinians in both directions from Sunday afternoon until evening.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, 917 Israeli settlers stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem, while Israeli authorities removed one of its guards from it.
The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate said in a statement, “917 settlers stormed the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque during the morning and evening incursions, while the number of tourists who entered the mosque through the tourist gate belonging to the occupation authorities reached 420 tourists.”
Settler attacks
Three Palestinians were injured on Sunday evening in an attack carried out by Israeli settlers in the northern occupied West Bank.
The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said in a statement that its crews transported "3 injuries to the hospital as a result of an attack by settlers in the village of Beit Lid near the city of Tulkarm," without providing further details.
The official “Voice of Palestine” radio station reported that the attack took place between the villages of Kafr Qaddum, east of Qalqilya, and Beit Lid, east of Tulkarm. Eyewitnesses reported that settlers attacked a Palestinian area between the two villages, before residents confronted them, resulting in injuries.
This comes as Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announced the legalization of 69 settlement outposts in the occupied West Bank since the current government took office three years ago, describing it as a "record number".
Smotrich, the head of the far-right Religious Zionist Party, said in a post on the “X” platform, commenting on the approval by the Security Cabinet on December 11 of the legalization of 19 settlement outposts: “The Cabinet approved the proposal that I submitted with my friend, Defense Minister Yisrael Katz, to legalize the status of 19 new settlements.
He added: "We continue to make history in the field of settlement and in the State of Israel," he said.
"A commitment to the policy of annexation"
For its part, Hamas on Sunday considered the Israeli occupation authorities’ approval of the construction of 19 settlements in the occupied West Bank “a new colonial step that perpetuates the policy of creeping annexation and aims to plunder Palestinian land.”
This came in a statement issued by Hamas Political Bureau member and Jerusalem Affairs Office official, Haroun Nasser al-Din, commenting on the Israeli Security Cabinet’s approval on December 11 of a plan presented by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to “legalize” 19 settlements (old and new) in the West Bank, according to Hebrew Channel 14.
Nasser al-Din said that the Israeli cabinet's approval of a plan to legalize 19 settlements in the West Bank is "a new colonial step that enshrines the policy of creeping annexation, and aims to plunder Palestinian land and impose coercive realities at the expense of the historical and legal rights of our people."
He stressed that the decision to establish new settlements and the "criminal practices of the occupation and its settlers reveal the occupation government's insistence on expanding settlements as a central tool for displacement."
In conjunction with the Israeli war of extermination launched by Israel in Gaza starting on October 8, 2023 and lasting for two years, the Israeli occupation army and settlers escalated their attacks in the West Bank, resulting in the martyrdom of more than 1,102 Palestinians, the injury of about 11,000, in addition to the arrest of more than 21,000.
The war of extermination left approximately 71,000 martyrs and more than 171,000 wounded Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children and women, and caused massive destruction with reconstruction costs estimated by the United Nations at approximately $70 billion.
