The Israeli army has accused the lawmaker of lying to them about the purpose of his excursion to the West Bank
A far-right Israeli MP smashed a memorial to Palestinians killed in the conflict with Israel in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday. He committed the act under IDF escort, which has been condemned by the army and politicians in Israel.
Zvi Sukkot, a member of Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s ultranationalist Religious Zionist party, said he went to the West Bank village of Madama to remove a monument that “glorified murderers of Jews.”
Video of the incident circulating online shows Sukkot and one other man taking sledgehammers to the monument while an Israeli soldier with an assault rifle watches nearby.
Footage of the aftermath captured by an RT correspondent shows the memorial defaced, with tiles around its stone base partially smashed.
The IDF said Sukkot had received permission to conduct a military-escorted “tour of monuments” in the West Bank, but “acted deceptively” and without authorization in damaging the monument.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office stressed that “taking the law into one’s own hands, particularly by public figures, is unacceptable.” The statement did not mention Sukkot by name.
Netanyahu’s primary political rival Gadi Eisenkot called the MP’s stunt “a disgrace.”
“He lied to and misled the IDF and its commanders, harmed security, and tarnished the State of Israel as a whole,” the former military chief said on X.
Sukkot’s ultranationalist Religious Zionist party has been at the forefront of Israel’s recent push for more settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are considered illegal under international law by the UN and most of the international community.
Last week, West Jerusalem opened bidding for the construction of more than 1,200 new homes in the area as part the settlement expansion, which was unveiled in July. Critics stress that the project threatens to effectively cut the West Bank in two if completed.
Settler violence has also spiked. Around 190 attacks against Palestinians took place in the first four months of this year, the UN said last month.
The settlement push has been condemned internationally, with the leaders of more than a dozen European countries denouncing it as “unacceptable” in a joint statement on Thursday.
Earlier this month, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia called on Israel to cease its “creeping expansion” into the occupied Palestinian territories and to take measures to “curb settler violence.” Moscow has long said that the only way to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to rest is to implement a two-state solution.
