US calls far-right Smotrich’s comments about a West Bank city “disgusting”

March 1 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The spokesman for the United States Department of State, Ned Price, has described as “disgusting” the comments of the Israeli Finance Minister, the far-right Bezalel Smotrich, who has affirmed this Wednesday that the city of Huwara should be “razed”.

“Just as we condemn Palestinian incitement to violence, we condemn these provocative comments that also amount to incitement to violence,” Price said at a press conference, according to The Jerusalem Post.

In this sense, he has appealed to the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other Israeli officials to “disapprove these comments”, which the State Department has also described as “irresponsible”.

Smotrich has pointed out that the West Bank town of Huwara, the scene of an attack by settlers on Sunday after an attack in which two Israelis were killed, should be “razed” by the State of Israel, as reported by the Israeli newspaper ‘The Times of Israel’.

Smotrich’s words came after former Defense Minister and leader of the opposition National Unity Party of Israel, Benjamin Gantz, stated that various members of the coalition government “support” the chaos in the Palestinian territories. Thus, he specified that Smotrich “wants to provoke another Nakba”, an Arabic term that means “catastrophe” and refers to the Palestinian exodus caused by the creation of the State of Israel in 1948.

During the day on Monday, the Israeli parliamentarian Zavika Fogel, from the far-right Otzma Yehudit, expressed his support for the attack on Huwara. “Yesterday a terrorist arrived from Huwara. Huwara has been closed and burned. That’s what I want to see. Only then can we achieve deterrence,” he said in an interview with Radio Galey Israel, although he later said that his words were ” misrepresented”.