MPs report witnessing armed intimidation by Israeli settlers in West Bank
Sir Edward Leigh and Uma Kumaran were among those to recount their experiences.
MPs have recounted witnessing acts of “intimidation” from Israeli settlers during their visits to the West Bank.
Father of the House Sir Edward Leigh said he witnessed two young settlers with submachine guns, while Labour MP Uma Kumaran said she had “guns pointed” in her face when in the West Bank with the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Last month Israeli tanks moved into the occupied West Bank for the first time since 2002, amidst a backdrop of increasing settler violence against Palestinians.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz has previously said he and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the military to “increase the intensity of the activity to thwart terrorism” in all refugee camps in the West Bank.
In Westminster Hall, Conservative MP Sir Edward told MPs: “The purpose of this debate, if we have any moral authority at all, is to convince our moderate Israeli friends that it is simply not in the long-term interests of Israel to hold down in occupation some five million Palestinians, two million in Gaza and three million on the West Bank.
“And there are many, many – a majority I would say – of moderate Israeli citizens who agree with that supposition.
“However, there are some extremist settlers who have a completely wrong idea that somehow they can expel people who lived for centuries in the West Bank from their ancestral homelands.”
The group saw Palestinian villages damaged by settlers. Sir Edward recalled: “The moment we turned up, two young settlers, I can only describe them as punks, turned up with submachine guns in a clear act of intimidation.”
He added: “Hundreds of Palestinian-owned olive trees have been torched, sawed down or destroyed.
“Settlers have been drafted into the army to protect local settlements because of the deployment of troops in Gaza and Lebanon. As a consequence some settlers have committed violence whilst in IDF uniform.”
Sir Edward also visited Hebron, a Palestinian city in the southern West Bank, where he said the main road was “completely deserted”.
He said: “A small settler movement has moved into Hebron and there are 800 Israeli soldiers protecting them and the Palestinians are prevented from even walking down the main road in their own town.
“And it was moving when we went to Ramallah to talk to a grandmother, actually a very distinguished banker, who can’t even see her grandson because it’s a very quick drive to Nablus from Ramallah but there are so many checkpoints it takes seven or eight hours.
“Everywhere you go in the West Bank there are checkpoints. Virtually every application to build or expand a settlement is granted, so 90-plus per cent, virtually every application by Palestinians to build is rejected.
“This is totally one-sided, it is intolerable and we should speak out about it in this Parliament.”
He added: “Of course it’s illegal. The Israeli government could stop it tomorrow. They chose not to.”
Ms Kumaran, MP for Stratford and Bow, travelled to the Middle East on a separate trip with the Foreign Affairs Select Committee.
She said: “Sitting down with counterparts in the Knesset I saw no will or desire to push forward for peace and it was sobering and it was frankly quite depressing.”
Discussing her time in Area C, a region of the West Bank that is fully controlled by Israel, she said: “The wider conditions for the community are stark.
“Their access to electricity is limited, their access to water is hampered. There is a stream within touching distance and they are unable to use that stream, in fact there is a sign erected above the stream with a Star of David that makes it clear they are unable to touch or even drink that water.
“It is terrifying and shocking and I tell you that I was there as a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee with full diplomatic protection, with security, with a reinforced 4×4, and we still had guns pointed in our faces, we were still terrified and our drivers would still not take us any further into Area C for fear of what would happen to us.”
Labour MP for Rochdale Paul Waugh also attended the trip with Sir Edward.
He said: “While the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza rightly deserve our attention, what became clear is as the Father of the House has just said, is that on our trip to the West Bank we became very, very conscious that a future Palestinian state is being slowly suffocated by Israeli settlements.
“By extremist settlers enabled and protected by Israeli police and the armed forces.”
Liberal Democrat MP Pippa Heylings (South Cambridgeshire) also attended the trip. She said West Bank violence by Israel is “not new, it did not start on October 7 and has been ongoing and escalating since the ceasefire agreement”.
She said: “During our visit we were witness to the impacts of daily violence by extremist settlers in the occupied territories and of the policies that continue to erode the rights and dignities of the Palestinian people.”
Foreign Office minister Catherine West said: “What’s needed now is a political process and a political horizon towards a two-state solution and that’s why it’s so important that members of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee visited the region so that they can deepen their understanding.”
