'We just let them advance': Israeli soldier confesses to enabling Hawara pogrom on CNN

The Israeli army “did not try, or failed to prevent violence” during the settler pogroms of Hawara in March this year CNN investigators revealed this week - confirming eyewitness testimony provided to The New Arab at the time.  

A soldier who spoke anonymously with the US channel said that dozens of Israeli forces were present at the scene, along with border police, and that they were aware of the violence about to be unleashed by the settlers - but did not do anything to intervene. 

“We just let them continue to advance,” said the soldier, adding that the Israeli army “doesn’t know how to deal with settler terrorism”.

The anonymous source told CNN he regretted the decision not to “start shooting tear gas, and stun grenades and start repelling them [the settler mob]”. 

Instead, the CNN report showed footage of Israeli soldiers firing tear gas and stun grenades at Palestinians trying to protect their property from oncoming settler fanatics. 

During the riot, hundreds of Israeli settlers attacked the Palestinian town of Hawara in the north of the occupied West Bank, following a shooting attack that wounded two Israeli soldiers in the town’s main street earlier that day.

The Israeli army’s inactivity which enabled the riot was reported to TNA's West Bank correspondent at the time. 

"Late into the night, while the army was still in the town, settlers began to gather by the dozens at the town’s entrance and pour into the northern neighbourhood," Muin Dmeidi, mayor of Hawara, told TNA.

Settlers threw stones and fired live bullets at Palestinian homes and property "in front of their occupation’s army and border police who saw everything and did nothing," said Dmeidi.

"A group of settlers tried to set fire to one of the houses, but fortunately the young men of the town fought them off and prevented them from causing greater damage," the mayor said.

Israeli forces have carried out near-daily raids in the West Bank for over a year, particularly in Nablus, Jenin and surrounding towns.

Israeli violence across Palestine has spiralled in 2023, taking the lives of over 160 Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces and settlers in the West Bank and besieged Gaza Strip since the beginning of this year.