REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, RAMALLAH -- A senior Palestinian official said Monday that young generation among the Palestinians is rejecting the Israeli occupation and the policy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hanan Ashrawi, Executive Committee member of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), said in a news briefing in Ramallah that "another generation of Palestinian young men and women, born under occupation and enduring its ruthlessness and cruelty, have again engaged in popular resistance to send a clear message to Israel and the world."
"This generation will not forget or surrender; their spirit cannot be broken and they will continue the struggle for freedom and dignity. They are literally dying to be free," she said.
She accused Netanyahu in the briefing of "giving his army and police forces a license to shoot, to kill and execute Palestinians on the spot."
"By calling on Israeli Jewish citizens to openly carry arms proves that Israel is transforming its own public into vigilantes and gangsters following the official Israeli policy of land theft and summary executions," she said.
Since early October, tension and violence has been flaring between Israel and the Palestinians after new Israeli measures were carried out at al-Aqsa mosque compound in east Jerusalem and a series of settlers' assaults.
"Israel provides incentives and protection to settler terrorists," said Ashrawi, adding that "it has thereby generated a culture of hate and racism and translated Israel's state impunity into lawlessness for its citizens."
Ashrawi also said that Israel "is the one provoking violence in Jerusalem and creating a situation of instability and crisis as a cover to exercise control over al-Aqsa Mosque and transform the character of Jerusalem."
She accused Israel of annexing more Palestinian land and escalating its illegal settlement activities.
"It persists in spreading a false narrative labeling Palestinians as terrorists, and blaming the victims once again in an act of grand deception," Ashrawi added.
During the last three weeks of tension between the two sides, 45 Palestinians and nine Israelis were killed and more than 2,000 injured.
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