Following the murder of two Israeli brothers in the West Bank on Feb. 26, 2023, a mob of around 400 Israelis attacked the Palestinian town of Huwara. They torched dozens of homes and cars, leaving one dead and hundreds wounded before being stopped by Israeli security forces.
Though some government leaders – including the head of the parliament’s National Security Committee – praised the mob or called for the state itself to erase the town’s existence, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu condemned them for “taking the law into their own hands.” Others – including the top Israeli general in the West Bank – used even stronger language, calling the attack a “pogrom,” as did a statement against the attack by the Israeli Historical Society, signed by some of Israel’s most renowned historians.
