Israeli violence against Palestinians echoes Holocaust – ex-Mossad chief

Ongoing attacks in the West Bank pose an “existential threat” to the Jewish state, Tamir Pardo has said

Violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank echoes attacks on Jews during the Holocaust and poses an “existential threat” to Israel, former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo has said.

Israeli settlers live in communities built in the West Bank, a territory Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War and which Palestinians seek as part of a future state. Successive Israeli governments have backed or tolerated the settlements for security, political, and religious reasons.

Pardo spoke to local media on Monday while touring Palestinian villages that have come under settler attacks in recent months.

”My mother was a Holocaust survivor, and what I saw reminded me of the events that happened against Jews in the last century,” Pardo said. “What I saw today made me feel ashamed to be Jewish.”

His comments come amid a surge in settler violence across the West Bank, with groups carrying out repeated raids on Palestinian communities, torching homes and vehicles, vandalizing property and assaulting residents, according to witnesses and human rights organizations. In the latest incident, two Palestinians, including a 14-year-old schoolboy, were killed last week after gunmen opened fire near a school.

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Attacks occur on a near-daily basis and intensified during the US-Israeli war on Iran between February 28 and April 8, rights groups said. Yesh Din recorded 378 incidents over that period, in which eight Palestinians were killed and around 200 injured.

Pardo said the settlers behind the attacks, and the Israeli government’s failure to stop them, were creating the conditions for a future October 7-style assault from the West Bank, referring to the 2023 Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people and saw 250 taken hostage. Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the attack. More than 72,000 Palestinians were killed and over 172,000 injured in Israeli airstrikes and ground offensives, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The former Mossad chief warned that the violence unfolding in the West Bank could lead to a similar event, albeit in a different and potentially more severe form given the region’s complexity, adding that Israel was “sowing the seeds” for such an outcome.