TURMUS AYYA: US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee met on Saturday (Sep 5) with Palestinians, together with the households of US residents killed by Israeli settlers, in a Palestinian city within the occupied West Bank that has been the target of repeated settler attacks.
Settler violence within the West Financial institution has risen sharply since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition authorities, essentially the most right-wing in Israel’s historical past, took workplace in late 2022.
A number of settlements have been established round Turmus Ayya, the Palestinian city close to Ramallah that Huckabee was visiting on Saturday. Its residents say that harassment by militant Israeli settlers is frequent and that they’re unable to cease them from getting into the city and damaging their houses.
“We’ve got many points that we are going to tackle,” Nawwaf Zaghoul, the city’s mayor, instructed reporters forward of the assembly, describing what he stated had been fixed assaults by settlers.
He stated that the city’s residents can be asking the ambassador to assist safe their security and safety. About 80 per cent of the city’s roughly 3,000 residents had been Palestinian People, he stated.
“LAWLESS SETTLERS”
Huckabee, a Baptist minister and longtime supporter of Israeli settlements, has known as for violent settlers to be prosecuted, whereas saying he believes their actions symbolize a minority of the broader settler neighborhood, which numbers round 750,000. Israeli settlers accused of finishing up assaults within the West Financial institution focusing on Palestinians are hardly ever prosecuted.
“We hope that (the ambassador) will do one thing for us concerning these lawless settlers,” Turmus Ayya resident Sameer Hazama stated forward of the assembly with the ambassador.
Huckabee visited Taybeh, one of many solely Christian villages remaining within the West Financial institution, in June 2025 after a church there was vandalised. Huckabee stated on the time that the desecration of a spot of worship was an act of terror and against the law.
Netanyahu’s authorities has additionally overseen an growth of settlements throughout the West Financial institution, additional entrenching Israeli management over territory that Palestinians search for a future state.
Israeli settlements within the West Financial institution are unlawful beneath worldwide legislation, with the United Nations and most nations deeming the territory to be occupied. Israel’s authorities says that the land is disputed, not occupied.
Huckabee refers back to the West Financial institution by its biblical title, Judea and Samaria, a time period utilized by the Israeli authorities however not adopted by the U.S. authorities. He has visited Shiloh, a settlement close to Turmus Ayya, no less than twice since 2025.
