The IDF sent hundreds more troops to Judea and Samaria on Monday, a day after a Palestinian terrorist killed two Israelis and settlers rampaged through a Palestinian town, torching homes and vehicles in the worst such violence in decades.
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The responses to the rampage laid bare some rifts in Israel's new right-wing government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appealing for calm while a member of his ruling coalition praised the rampage as deterrence against Palestinian attacks.
The events also underscored the limitations of the traditional US approach to the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Washington has been trying to prevent escalation while staying away from the politically costly task of pushing for a resolution of the core disputes.
As the violence raged in the West Bank, such an attempt at conflict management was taking place Sunday in Jordan, with the US bringing together Israeli and Palestinian officials to work out a plan for de-escalation.
Sunday's events kicked off when a Palestinian terrorist shot and killed brothers Hallel and Yagel Yaniv, ages 21 and 19, from the Jewish settlement of Har Bracha, in a shooting ambush in the Palestinian town of Hawara in the northern West Bank. The gunman fled.
Following the shooting, groups of settlers rampaged along the main thoroughfare in Hawara, which is used by both Palestinians and Israeli settlers. In one video, a crowd of settlers stood in prayer as they stared at a building in flames. Labor Party leader Merav Michaeli condemned the rampage as "a pogrom by armed militias" of West Bank settlers.
Late Sunday, a 37-year-old Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli fire, two Palestinians were shot and wounded and another was beaten with an iron bar, Palestinian health officials said. Some 95 Palestinians were being treated for tear gas inhalation, according to medics.
On Monday morning, the Hawara thoroughfare was lined with rows of burned-out cars and smoke-blackened buildings. Normally bustling shops remained shuttered. Palestinian media said some 30 homes and cars were torched.
At the scene of the shooting, Defense Minister Yoav Galant told reporters that Israel "cannot allow a situation in which citizens take the law into their hands," but stopped short of outright condemning the violence.
"I ask everyone to heed the law and especially to trust in the army and security forces," he said
The Yaniv brothers were to be laid to rest in Jerusalem on Monday.
Lt. Col. Richard Hecht, an Israeli military spokesman, described the situation as "a tense quiet." He said the army deployed hundreds of additional troops to the area with the aim of de-escalation. Two battalions were sent late Sunday and a third on Monday, with several hundred soldiers each.
The army has not caught the Palestinian gunman. Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne said eight Israelis were detained in connection with Sunday's rioting, and that six had already been released.
Israeli troops also began removing settlers from a previously evacuated settlement outpost near the West Bank city of Nablus. Several settlers had camped there following Sunday's deadly shooting, Israel's public broadcaster Kan reported.
Speaking at a settlement outpost retaken after Sunday's shooting, National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, the leader of the Otzma Yehuidt party, called for a "real war on terrorism" and legalizing the outpost, which troops were once again clearing.
"We must crush our enemies," he said in response to the Palestinian attack. As for the settler violence, he added: "I understand the hard feelings, but this isn't the way, we can't take the law into our hands."
While Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog urged settlers not to engage in vigilante actions, other members of the ruling coalition fanned the flames.
Tzvika Foghel, a lawmaker from the ultra-nationalist Jewish Power party, said the rampage would help deter Palestinian attacks. "I see the result in a very good light," he told Army Radio when asked about what the interviewer referred to as a pogrom.
Sunday's violence has drawn condemnation from the international community. US State Department spokesman Ned Price said the shooting attack and the rampage "underscore the imperative to immediately de-escalate tensions in words and deeds."
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he held the Israeli government responsible for what he called "the terrorist acts carried out by settlers under the protection of the occupation forces tonight."
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