Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demanded an investigation into an IDF exercise that saw soldiers mimic the struggle against Jewish settlers who kidnapped Palestinians in the West Bank.
Following outrage over footage of an IDF training exercise in Judea and Samaria on Monday, Netanyahu slammed the exercise as completely unrealistic and demanded answers as to why such an exercise would take place in the first place.
“This fictional scenario is disconnected from reality, unjustified and does injustice to the entire precious settler community at a time when many of them fought fiercely and even fell to defend Israel,” Netanyahu said in a statement.
“I cannot accept such a heartless attitude towards our brothers and sisters in Judea and Samaria,” he added.
The IDF staged a simulation in which soldiers wore “enemy” jackets while pretending to be Israeli settlers abducting Palestinians in the West Bank. hakolhayehudi/X The IDF said it was an “extreme scenario” and part of more than 100 exercises practiced by the army. hakolhayehudi/X
The exercise, which simulated West Bank settlers kidnapping a Palestinian in response to a terrorist attack, was one of more than 100 scenarios prepared for the army and was listed among “extreme scenarios,” the IDF said in response to the response.
Footage from the exercise shows soldiers getting ready for the exercise while some soldiers wear vests that mark them as “enemy forces.”
The military apologized for labeling settlers in such a scenario, adding that the IDF was not prepared for any battle against West Bank settlers, the Times of Israel reported.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has slammed the exercise as unrealistic and has demanded an investigation into the IDF. AP
The IDF does not drill scenarios that simulate settlers as enemies, and the marking of the vests, whose purpose is to separate the exercise, is part of the exercise’s security routine,” the IDF said. “In this case, it was a mistake to mark them with such an inscription and we apologize for that.”
Although Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have slammed the exercise as unrealistic, such events have occurred in the past.
In 2014, three Israelis confessed to killing Mohammed Abu Khdeir, a Palestinian teenager who was kidnapped from his home in east Jerusalem and burned to death.
Israeli soldiers stand guard near the scene of a shooting in Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank February 1, 2024. REUTERS
His killing preceded the kidnapping and death of three Israeli teenagers, with the revenge killing sparking a wave of violence across the West Bank.
Following the October 7 terrorist attacks, the conflict in the West Bank escalated as Israeli settlers continued to clash with Palestinians.
Last week, President Biden issued an executive order imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers accused of inciting violence in the West Bank.
In his executive order, Biden said that the “high level of extremist settler violence” has “reached unacceptable levels and is a serious threat to the peace, security and stability of the West Bank and Gaza, Israel, and the wider Middle East region. .”
The order comes two weeks after the death of American Abdel Jabbar, 17, who was shot and killed in the West Bank on January 19 in a case that is still under investigation.
Escalating violence from the war in Gaza made 2023 the deadliest year for Palestinians in the West Bank, with at least 507 people killed, including 81 children, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
