Israel plans shift in West Bank security structure amid settler violence

TEL AVIV

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Aug. 14 ordered the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to draw up a plan to transfer responsibility for enforcing civilian law among Israeli settler in the occupied West Bank to the Israeli police.

Under the proposed arrangement, the police will establish a specialized unit responsible for law enforcement involving Israeli settlers in the West Bank and would be provided with the necessary powers and funding.

The transfer would not grant the police independent access to Areas A and B of the West Bank, where officers currently require IDF support to operate.

Katz said the move would enable the military to concentrate on its primary security responsibilities, including combating “Palestinian terrorism” and protecting Israel’s borders and communities

“The IDF’s role is to fight Palestinian terrorism, focus on defending the borders and the communities against threats, and not to chase after youths on the hills,” he said.

The directive follows recent clashes near the Palestinian village of Qusra, where Israeli settlers established unauthorized outposts on Palestinian land.

For five nights, Israeli settlers surrounded three Palestinian homes on the outskirts of a town in the occupied West Bank, preventing the families from leaving safely as their food and water supplies dwindled.

The standoff in the northern West Bank town of Qusra is the latest in a wave of settler violence convulsing the territory, which Israel seized in the 1967 Mideast war and which would make up the main part of a future Palestinian state.

On Aug. 13, U.S. Ambassador Mike Huckabee referred to the settlers as “terrorists,” a word American officials usually reserve for Palestinian militants. It was an unusually sharp rebuke from the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, who has given unprecedented supportto Israeli settlement over the years.