Israeli minister calls for security zones around West Bank settlements to keep Palestinians away

JERUSALEM : Israel's hardline nationalist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich called on Monday for security zones to be set up around Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, keeping Palestinian farmers away during the olive harvest season. The harvest season, when Palestinian olive growers spend more time in the open bringing in the crop, has often led to clashes between settlers and Palestinian inhabitants in the West Bank. Smotrich, head of one of the religious-nationalist parties in the ruling right-wing coalition, wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant to demand special zones around the settlements to stop Palestinians coming near "including for the olive harvest." While Hamas tightly controls besieged Gaza, the West Bank is a complex patchwork of hillside cities, Israeli settlements and army checkpoints that split Palestinian communities. Smotrich said the Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip ...