EPA/ALAA BADARNEH
A Palestinian inspects the damage at a women’s hair salon after shrapnel fell in Beit Awa, in the West Bank, on March 19, which killed at least four Palestinian women and injured seven others, according to the Ministry of Health.
Government wants accountability for settlers who attacked Portuguese activist. Israeli military chief classifies settler attacks as unacceptable.
A 25-year-old Portuguese woman was attacked and robbed by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, last Friday.
The Left Bloc deputy, Fabian Figueiredostated that the woman was subjected to “an hour of torture, robbery, violence, death threats” and asked the prime minister whether clarifications had been requested from the Israeli ambassador in Lisbon.
“Were guarantees requested that this group of 30 settlers will be brought to justice or will this group of citizens, accused by the UN of being agents of ethnic cleansing, once again go unpunished?”
This Wednesday, Luis Montenegro stated that the Government will do “everything that needs to be done” to hold accountable the attack on a Portuguese activist in the West Bank, who considered it “an absolutely heinous act”.
“Everything that has to be done to hold accountable this absolutely heinous act will have to be done. Not only because it is [uma cidadã] Portuguese, but because he was on a humanitarian mission”, said the head of government, in response to the Blocist deputy, during the preparatory debate for the European Council, scheduled for Thursday and Friday in Brussels.
For Montenegro, the attack it was “an absolutely gross, unjustified, unacceptable violation of the most basic human rights”.
The Prime Minister said that the Portuguese Embassy in Ramallah “monitored the situation” and the citizen “was removed and is safe”.
Israel regrets attacks
Settler attacks on Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank are “unacceptable, morally and ethically”said the chief of staff of the Israeli Army, who called on politicians “to act before it is too late”.
The lieutenant general Eyal Zamir said, during a visit to a command center: “We have recently seen an increase in criminal acts of a nationalist nature, some of which are directed directly against our soldiers and the civilian population.”
Estes “acts (…) are morally and ethically unacceptable and cause enormous strategic damage to Tsahal’s efforts”he considered, adding “to all authorities to oppose this phenomenon and eradicate it before it is too late”.
He also said that “it is unacceptable that, during a war on several fronts, Tsahal is also forced to face a threatening minority coming from the interior”.
The military leader described the attackers as “mutineers who do not represent the settlements” of settlers in the occupied West Bank. “On the contrary, they endanger implantations (i.e. colonies), security, stability and our values as a people and a State”, he developed.
More than 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bankexcluding East Jerusalem, among about three million Palestinians, in settlements that the United Nations considers illegal under international law.
On Tuesday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned of the expulsion of more than 36,000 Palestinians in the West Bank in a single year, showing concerns about “ethnic cleansing”.
According to the organization’s report, “the displacement of more than 36,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank constitutes a mass expulsion on an unprecedented scale”says the text, which calls for an end to the expansion of Israeli settlements in that territory.
The document reports 1,732 incidents of settler violence that resulted in casualties or material damage, compared to 1,400 in the previous period (November 2023 to October 2024).
Shortly before, the UN Agency for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that between October 7, 2023 and March 7, 2026, 1,062 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank, including 231 children, in the global context of colonization and the ongoing conflict, described by several organizations and experts as genocide.
