Palestinian rioters near the evacuated West Bank outpost of Evyatar put up a flaming wooden Star of David with a swastika inside on Saturday night that was captured on video and widely circulated.
مشاهد من فعاليات الإرباك الليلي قرب البؤرة الاستيطانية في بلدة بيتا.تصوير: عبدالله بحش#فلسطين pic.twitter.com/omvKCgrkkO
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 14, 2021
In a method Palestinians refer to as “night confusion” rioters threw explosives, burned tires, and pointed laser lights at the outpost hilltop, which although uninhabited, is slated for authorization.
“In using these symbols of hate, the demonstrators crossed a line,” said Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories Major General Ghassan Alian. “Any comparison between Nazi and Zionist ideas indicates just how ignorant the person who does such a thing really is, both historically and morally.”
Alian said he did not believe that such an act was a true reflection of Palestinian society and that the participants should be ashamed.
“This type of act does not represent the values of any society, particularly not the Palestinian one,” Alian said.
“Anyone who took part in this dreadful event should be ashamed of himself,” he added. “We strongly condemn this shameful act and call upon the Palestinian people to do the same.”
Palestinians have demonstrated almost daily in the area of Nablus to protest the outpost’s creation since it was founded in May. The outpost was built on territory which Israel says is state land and which the Palestinians believe belong to the towns of Beita, Qabalan and Yatma.
The riots are similar in nature to those that have been held along the Gaza border, where swastikas have also been used as a protest symbol.
“The young men demonstrating against the illegal settlements are heroes,” said Mohammed Zain, a local activist from the Nablus area.
“We will continue the peaceful protests until we foil the Israeli government’s plan to seize our lands. What happened on Saturday is not because we are against the Jewish religion, or because we support Hitler. We just wanted to send a message that there isn’t much of a difference between Israel and the Nazis.”
Right-wing Israelis and settlers who condemned the use of the swastika argued that the Palestinian have shown their true face.
Renegade Yamina MK Amichai Chikli tweeted: From Mufti Haj Amin [al-Husseini] to Beita, Palestinian nationalism is still inspired by Nazism.”
Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, in whose region of the West Bank the riot took place said: “The continued barbaric riots of the terrorists from Beita, and the intensity of the Palestinian Authority funded violent resistance prove how strategic and important Evyatar is for the settlement [drive].”
Video reportedly from the scene on Saturday night showed Palestinians surrounding the swastika and holding flaming torches.
Additional video shared on Saturday night showed fire and a large explosion, with Palestinian media reporting that a sound barrel had been detonated.
شاهد| انفجار مُدوٍّ خلال الإرباك الليلي قرب البؤرة الاستيطانية في بلدة بيتا جنوب نابلس.#فلسطين pic.twitter.com/Ll9a4gfWdM
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 14, 2021
Palestinians call the site of the Evyatar outpost “Jabal Al-Sabih” or “The Morning Mountain,” because sunlight strikes it early. They are particularly concerned about the creation of a new settlement there because such a Jewish community would disrupt the Palestinian territorial contiguity.
Officials at the Beita Municipality refused to comment on the burning of the Star of David with a swastika but several activists from the town defended the action and accused Israel of perpetrating “war crimes” against Beita’s residents.
Palestinian activists argue that Israelis who have protested against the swastika video on social media are using the footage to incite against them. They are concerned that these posts with videos and photos of the incident have gone viral and have appealed to social media users to report such posts to Facebook and Twitter on the grounds that they promoted hate speech.
The activists specifically targeted as incitement the social media accounts of the heads of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) and the Arab media division of the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit who posted photos and videos of the incident and strongly condemned the Palestinian activists for burning the act.
The activists said they were proud of the protests which they described as “peaceful.”
Activist, Mohammed Nasser, said he and many residents of the town were “surprised to see how the Israeli authorities and media outlets are exploiting the incident to incite against the Palestinians.”
“The men who burned the Star of David did not kill or injure anyone,” Nasser said. “Journalists should focus on the Israeli army’s crimes and not on a peaceful protest. Everyone is talking about Saturday’s incident and not the Beita martyrs who were killed in the past few weeks for defending their land.”
Mohammed Hamdan, head of the ruling Fatah faction in Nablus, called to declare Beita a “disaster-striken area.”
He claimed that 3,200 residents have been injured since the beginning of the clashes with the IDF three months ago. According to Hamdan, at least 200 were wounded by live fire.
Evyatar outpost was first established in 2013 in the aftermath of the terror attack in the nearby Tapuach junction that claimed the life of Evyatar Borovsky, 31.
It was immediately evacuated but was rebuilt in May after Yehuda Guetta, 19, was killed by a Palestinian terrorist in a drive by shooting.
Some 50 families who moved onto the site agreed to evacuate after an agreement was brokered by the government that the modular buildings placed there would remain and that the community would eventually be legalized.
But Palestinian protests, particularly connected to the town of Beita, has turned the area into the most violent flashpoint in the West Bank.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Palestinian territories reported on Friday that from July 27 to August 9, 77 percent of Palestinian injuries in West Bank clashes with the IDF occurred in the area of Evyatar and Beita.
That breaks down to 764 Palestinians injured in IDF clashes in the West Bank, of which 586 were wounded in the Evyatar and Beita area.
Two of the four Palestinian fatalities by the IDF during this period also occurred by Beita; one during clashes on August 6 and the second during a moment of calm on July 27.
In that latter incident, according to OCHA, the IDF claims that the Shadi Salim 41, walked toward them with an iron bar and did not stop. Palestinian sources, in turn, claimed that he “was a municipal employee repairing the water network, and the iron bar was in fact a wrench,” the UN said.