Israeli minister calls for security zones around West Bank settlements to keep Palestinians away

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Israeli minister calls for security zones around West Bank settlements to keep Palestinians away

Reuters
November 6, 2023 12:42 PM EST Updated 5 hours ago

JERUSALEM, Nov 6 (Reuters) - Israel's hardline nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Monday for security zones to be set up around Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, keeping Palestinian farmers away during the olive harvest season.

The harvest season, when Palestinian olive growers spend more time in the open bringing in the crop, has often led to clashes between settlers and Palestinian inhabitants in the West Bank.

Smotrich, head of one of the religious-nationalist parties in the ruling right-wing coalition, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to demand special zones around the settlements to stop Palestinians coming near "including for the olive harvest."

While Hamas tightly controls besieged Gaza, the West Bank is a complex patchwork of hillside cities, Israeli settlements and army checkpoints that split Palestinian communities.

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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israeli-minister-calls-security-zones-around-west-bank-settlements-keep-2023-11-06/

Alternate non-paywalled link: https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-minister-calls-security-zones-184219778.html

[dem4decades]

1. If the security zone for each settlement was big enough, couldn't they take over the whole place?

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I could have sworn I read that they (the Israeli's) had security forces around a lot of their

settlements, or that the settlers themselves had guards out. In any event, they got caught off guard.