The Palestinian Foreign Ministry indicated that “the statements and incursions by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett are a call for escalation and violence and a disregard for international condemnation of the crimes of occupation.”

The ministry said in a statement: “Bennett’s call for his army and police to use excessive force against the Palestinians wherever they are is a direct incitement to an escalation of the situation and a cycle of violence, as well as Israel’s official recognition that the actions of the occupying forces and the actions of the settlers are systematic Israeli policy directed from above the political hierarchy in the occupying country”.

She pointed out that “these calls come from a racist colonial mentality that denies the existence of our Palestinian people and their right to their homeland and replaces the culture of peace with a culture of hatred and the abolition of the other.”

The ministry condemned extremist Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s ongoing provocative incursions into the occupied West Bank, most recently his visit to the Kanna settlement yesterday and his ominous visit this morning to the Keda settlement in the northern West Bank.

She pointed out that “these incursions reflect Israel’s official desire to legitimize, deepen and expand Israeli settlements on the soil of the State of Palestine, which constitutes a flagrant violation of international law, the Geneva Conventions, international legitimacy and its resolutions.”