Palestinians Fear Netanyahu Win Could Mean More Israeli Violence
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Palestinians expressed concern over the prospect of the Israeli regime’s former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu returning to power and said they believed it was a prelude to greater escalation of the conflict.
Netanyahu's comeback in Tuesday's election is set against the backdrop of the deadliest spell of violence, as more than 100 Palestinians from the Israeli-occupied West Bank have been killed by Israeli forces just this year.
Palestinian officials in the West Bank and Gaza Strip said the ultra-nationalist complexion of Netanyahu's likely alliance, including the firebrand Itamar Ben-Gvir, who once advocated expelling Palestinians, prompted concern over further tension.
"No doubt the result of such a coalition will increase the hostile attitude towards the Palestinian people and make occupation measures more extreme," Bassam Salhe, a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization, told Reuters in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas, which has fought several wars with Israel over the last decade, predicted the results meant more potential violence.
"It is clear that the Israelis are leaning towards more extremism, which also means aggression against our people would increase," Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told Reuters.
"Netanyahu-led governments that launched several wars against our Palestinian people, and the presence of the most extreme figures in a coalition mean that we are going to face more of the Zionist terrorism," Qassem told Reuters.
"The Palestinian people will get nothing from this regime except war, destruction, killing, bloodshed, house demolition, razing of land and the building of more settlements at the expense of the Palestinian people," said Youssef Khattab, a TV director in Gaza.
Israeli forces have recently been conducting overnight raids and killings in the northern occupied West Bank, mainly in the cities of Jenin and Nablus, where new groups of Palestinian resistance fighters have been formed.
More than 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Israeli-occupied territories since the start of the year, including 51 in the besieged Gaza Strip during Israel’s three-day onslaught in August.
More than 30 of those killed were either from Jenin or were killed in the Jenin region.
