The Palestinian Authority (PA) has strongly condemned extremist Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s support for the regime’s latest aggression on the Gaza Strip, calling on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue an arrest warrant against him.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates made the appeal on Sunday, after Hebrew-language media reported that Ben-Gvir has hailed the targeted killings of senior members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement during the recent Israeli offensive on Gaza.
Earlier in the day, Ben-Gvir was quoted as saying, “What was in the [military] operation is good and important. The next operation must be in Judea and Samaria.”
The Palestinian ministry denounced Ben-Gvir’s remarks as “a license to kill Palestinian citizens,” saying they are a call for “an unjustified military escalation, which reflects an expansionist colonial mentality” to perpetuate the gradual annexation of the occupied West Bank.
It went on to say that the “racist statements” of Ben-Gvir amount to calls for “intensifying ethnic cleansing and killing more Palestinian citizens in the West Bank, in order to prepare the ground for replacing them with Israeli settlers.”
The ministry further called on the international community to boycott the far-right Israeli minister and work towards prosecuting him before the ICC.
The Israeli regime has been continuously bombarding Gaza since May 9, assassinating several resistance commanders.
In response, Palestinian resistance factions have launched retaliatory strikes toward Israeli cities and settlements.
On Saturday, Palestinian resistance groups said a ceasefire agreement was reached with Israel to end five days of the regime’s ruthless onslaught on the coastal strip.
At least 33 Palestinians, including 13 civilians, were killed and 147 others wounded in the latest round of Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip, according to Gaza’s health ministry.
The conflict marked the worst episode of fighting between Gaza’s resistance factions and the Israeli regime since a 10-day war in 2021.
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