Netanyahu condemns ‘calls to take land illegally’ in veiled rebuke of Ben Gvir

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounces the establishment of wildcat outposts as response to terrorism, after settler activists set up a number of illegal structures across the West Bank following a deadly shooting attack.

“I’ve said for years that the proper response to terror is to fight terrorists and simultaneously deepen our roots in our land,” Netanyahu says at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, referring to settlement construction. “And we are taking out terrorists in record number and also building in our land on a broad scale according to approved building plans. I emphasize — approved.”

“Calls to take land illegally and the activity of taking land illegally are unacceptable to me. They undermine law and order in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] and they must stop immediately,” he continues in a veiled rebuke of National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who urged settlers to “run for the hilltops.”

“Not only do we not support acts like these, our government will act decisively against them.”

Netanyahu doesn’t mention the numerous settler rampages in Palestinian towns that have also occurred since four Israelis were killed in the Palestinian terror shooting next to the settlement of Eli last week. Following another such attack yesterday, security chiefs released a joint statement condemning the settler extremists’ violence as “nationalist terror in the full sense of the term,” drawing a rebuttal from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners.