Ramallah, Palestinian Territories // Renewed violence between Israelis and Palestinians is rooted in the latter’s humiliation and desperation after decades of occupation, said the Palestinian foreign minister on Monday as hundreds of Palestinian youths in the occupied West Bank clashed with Israeli soldiers.
Riad Al Malki said Palestinians born under the ongoing Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which began in 1967, have seen nothing “but humiliation, soldiers’ check-points, deaths and killing”.
“They are born without any hope for the future ... that’s why sometimes they [teenage assailants] decide to sacrifice their lives even at the age of 15 ... for the better lives of the rest of the Palestinians,” Mr Malki said while on an official visit to Japan with Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas.
His comments came as the Palestinian ministry of health said 28 people were shot, including one in the head, when Israeli soldeirs raided the Al-Amari refugee camp at the entrance to the West Bank city of Ramallah.
A squad of 25 Israeli soldiers fired rubber bullets and live ammunition at hundreds of youths who threw stones and glass bottles during clashes in the camp, which is located on the edge of Ramallah – where the Palestinian Authority is headquartered. The Israeli army did not give a reason for their raid in the camp, speaking only of “operational activity”.
A day earlier, five Palestinians, including three teenagers, were killed while carrying out attacks in the latest in a wave of Palestinian knife, gun and car-ramming attacks on Israelis that erupted at the beginning of October. Since then 172 Palestinians and 26 Israelis have been killed.
Most of the Palestinians were carrying out attacks but others died during clashes and demonstrations.
Mr Malki also said that Palestinian authorities do not advocate violence and are trying to prevent it.
“But the international community has to understand that there is a limit to everything,” he said.
Some analysts say Palestinian frustration with Israeli occupation and settlement building in the West Bank, the complete lack of progress in peace efforts and their own fractured leadership have fed the unrest.
Israel blames incitement by Palestinian leaders and media as a main cause of the violence.
Peace talks collapsed in April 2014 and since then, the situation has deteriorated, with the prospects of fresh dialogue appearing more remote than ever.
Mr Malki said that one-on-one talks with Israel were out of the question: “We will never go back and sit again in a direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.”
He stressed that a multilateral framework to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is needed and he praised an initiative discussed last month by France to revive plans for an international conference to end the conflict.
He also warned that without international involvement a vacuum will be left that may end up being filled by the ISIL militant group.
“If Daesh take advantage of lack of any brokers ... then of course, they might come and try to fill it,” he said adding that “this is very dangerous”.
“If the Americans are giving up and the Europeans don’t have the courage to do anything and Arabs are really worried about their own problems, what do you expect? Extremists around might take over.”
* Agence France-Presse