Jerusalem Governorate: Arming Settlers in Jerusalem is Racial Incitement and a Dangerous Step to Escalate Crimes Against Palestinians

SadaNews - The Jerusalem Governorate considered that the announcement by the Minister of National Security in the occupation government, Itamar Ben Gvir, to expand the scope of granting gun licenses to residents of colonial neighborhoods in Jerusalem, and deeming them eligible to carry arms according to his claim, is a racial incitement and an extremely dangerous step that would open the door to more crimes against Palestinian citizens.

The governorate confirmed in a statement today, Monday, that this policy represents a public and official incitement to kill and commit crimes outside the framework of the law, granting extreme extremists a license to take the law into their own hands, aligning with their extremist ideology based on hatred and racism towards Palestinians.

It pointed out that Jerusalem has witnessed the martyrdom of more than (140) of its residents in the past five years, nearly half of whom are children, as a result of official incitement policies and the systematic violence practiced by the occupation forces and settlers.

The governorate emphasized that the escalation of incitement rhetoric from ministers in the occupation government, led by Itamar Ben Gvir, has directly contributed to inflaming violence against Palestinians, especially since October 7, 2023, amid escalating policies to arm settlers and encourage them to target Palestinian citizens in the occupied city.

The governorate stressed that the increase in settlers’ crimes in recent years proves that these attacks are not individual acts or isolated incidents, but represent a pattern of organized state terrorism for which the occupation government bears full responsibility, given its announced policies of arming settlers and providing them with political, security, and legal cover, using them as a tool to impose facts on the ground by force and implement policies of forced displacement against Palestinian citizens.

It called on the international community, including the UN Security Council, the European Union, the United Nations and its agencies, as well as the states party to the Geneva Conventions, to take their legal and moral responsibilities regarding these dangerous policies, and to work immediately on disarming settlers based on Security Council resolution 904, and to stop the support and protection provided by the occupation government to these armed groups, ensuring the protection of Palestinian civilians and halting the escalating crimes against them.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that about 300,000 people in Jerusalem living in 41 different neighborhoods will fall within the eligibility criteria to obtain a gun license under this policy, while Ben Gvir announced that residents of all Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem will be eligible to obtain a gun license.