BRUSSELS: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Friday that rising violence by extremists in the Israeli-occupied West Bank had to stop.

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased since the Oct 7 Hamas raid on Israel.

“We must prevent violence from spreading, and therefore a peaceful co-existence is only possible with the two-state solution,” Von der Leyen told a news conference in Canada alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and European Council President Charles Michel.

“The Palestinian people and the Arab neighbours need the reassurance that there will be no forced displacement but a viable perspective, with an independent Palestinian state Gaza and West Bank reunited and governed by a reformed Palestinian authority. And to this end, unacceptable violence by extremists in the West Bank has to stop,” she added.

Earlier this week, US President Joe Biden also said that the United States is prepared to issue visa bans against “extremists” attacking civilians in the West Bank.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Cameron also urged Israel to crack down on what he called “completely unacceptable” violence by West Bank settlers.

“People are actually targeting and on occasion killing Palestinian civilians, it’s completely unacceptable and those people responsible for that, it’s not good enough just to arrest them, they need to be arrested, prosecuted and imprisoned. These are crimes,” he told the BBC.

Earlier, French foreign ministry spokesperson Anne-Claire Legendre said, “Concerning the West Bank, I’d like to express the strongest condemnation by France of the violence carried out by the settlers against the Palestinians”.

“Violence which has the clear objective of forced displacement of the Palestinians and a policy of terror.” She said the Israeli authorities needed to take the necessary measures to protect the Palestinian population and warned that the settlement policy harmed the two-state solution.

In 235 attacks by settlers against Palestinians recorded by OCHA, more than a third involved “using firearms to threaten Palestinians, including by opening fire”.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2023