JERUSALEM, March 9, 2026, WAFA — The Jerusalem Governorate condemned the announcement by the Israeli occupation’s Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to expand the issuance of firearm licenses to residents of Israeli colonial settlements in occupied Jerusalem.
The governorate described the move as racist incitement and an extremely dangerous measure that could pave the way for further crimes against Palestinian residents.
The governorate affirmed in a statement today, Monday, that this policy constitutes official and public incitement to murder and commit other unlawful acts, granting extremist colonists a license to take the law into their own hands in line with their extremist ideology rooted in hatred and racism against Palestinians.
The statement noted that over the past five years, more than 140 Palestinians in Jerusalem have been killed, nearly half of them children, as a result of official incitement policies and the systematic violence carried out by occupation forces and colonists.
The governorate emphasized that the escalation of incitement by Israeli ministers, including Itamar Ben-Gvir, has directly fueled violence against Palestinians, particularly since October 7, 2023, amid growing policies arming colonists and encouraging attacks on Palestinian residents of the occupied city.
The governorate emphasized that the recent surge in colonists’ crimes demonstrates that these attacks are not isolated incidents, but rather part of a pattern of organized state terrorism for which the Israeli occupation government bears full responsibility, reinforced by its policies of arming colonists, granting them political, security, and legal cover, and using them as instruments to impose facts on the ground and carry out the forced displacement of Palestinian residents.
The governorate called on the international community, including the UN Security Council, the European Union, the United Nations and its agencies, and states party to the Geneva Conventions, to fulfill their legal and moral responsibilities regarding these dangerous policies.
It called for immediate measures to disarm colonists in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 904 and to end the support and protection provided by the Israeli government to these armed groups, to safeguard Palestinian civilians and halt the escalating violence against them.
Israeli media reported that around 300,000 people living in 41 different neighborhoods in Jerusalem would become eligible for firearm licenses under this policy. Ben-Gvir announced that residents of all Jewish neighborhoods in the city would be eligible to obtain licenses.
T.R.
