Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has likened a rampage by armed Jewish settlers in a Palestinian village to a pogrom and said Israel would not tolerate such attacks in the occupied West Bank.
Dozens of settlers, some firing weapons, assaulted Palestinians and damaged houses in the village of Asira al-Kabaliya yesterday after a Palestinian stabbed a nine-year-old boy in a nearby Jewish outpost. His wounds were not life threatening.
Three Palestinians were shot and wounded in the settlers' attack, medical officials said. No arrests were made.
"In the State of Israel, there will be no pogroms against non-Jews," Mr Olmert said in broadcast remarks at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting.
"(This) is an intolerable phenomenon, and it will be dealt with in the strongest way by Israel's law enforcement authorities," he said of the assault on the village.
The word "pogrom" has particular significance in Israel, where it is used mainly to describe violence against Jews in Russia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Some 500,000 Jews live among 2.5 million Palestinians on West Bank land captured by Israel in a 1967 war, including Arab East Jerusalem.
Mr Olmert, the focus of a series of corruption investigations, is due to resign later this week after his Kadima party holds an election to pick a new leader on Wednesday. But he could stay on as caretaker prime minister for weeks or months until his successor forms a new government, or failing that, an early national election is held.
Mr Olmert has pledged to use the remainder of his tenure to continue to pursue a peace deal with the Palestinians.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said in an interview published today he will remain in office until 2010. Mr Abbas's Fatah faction says Palestinian parliamentary and presidential elections should be held together in 2010.
Hamas, which defeated Fatah in parliamentary elections in 2006, says Mr Abbas's term ends in January, 2009.
Reuters