Netanyahu under rare pressure from US

WASHINGTON/HUWARA, West Bank — Israel's closest ally the United States has demanded that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repudiate a call by his Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich for a Palestinian village to be "erased".

Putting more pressure on Netanyahu were images unseen for years in Tel Aviv of police firing stun guns and scuffling with Israeli protesters on a main road during a national "day of disruption" over government plans to overhaul the judiciary.

Smotrich, the head of a party in Netanyahu's coalition, made the comment at a conference on Wednesday amid a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks and Israeli settler violence in the occupied West Bank.

Asked about a weekend settler rampage through the Palestinian village of Huwara, which an Israeli general on Tuesday described as a pogrom, Smotrich said: "I think that Huwara needs to be erased. I think that the state of Israel needs to do it, but God forbid not individual people."

A US State Department spokesman, Ned Price, called the comments irresponsible, repugnant and disgusting, telling reporters: "We call on Prime Minister Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials to publicly and clearly reject and disavow these comments."

Palestinian leaders welcomed the State Department's reaction.

The call by Smotrich to erase Huwara is "racist terrorism", said Hussein al-Sheikh, secretary-general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

International alarm

The unusually forthright reaction from Washington underlined the increasing international alarm at the escalating violence. Israeli forces killed one Palestinian and arrested six in the West Bank on Wednesday.

After making the Huwara comments, Smotrich said the media had misinterpreted them.

Netanyahu formed a government two months ago, promising his coalition partners to limit the Supreme Court's ability to strike down legislation or rule against the executive and to entrench Israeli control of the West Bank.

The protests have been going on for weeks. The overhaul has yet to become law but it has already affected the national currency.

Israeli police on Wednesday fired stun grenades and water cannons at demonstrators who blocked a Tel Aviv highway, and protesters scuffled with police near Netanyahu's private residence in Jerusalem as weeks of anti-government protests turned violent for the first time.

Thousands across the country took part in "national disruption day" activities, the latest in a string of mass protests against the plan to overhaul Israel's judiciary and weaken the country's Supreme Court. The plan has drawn heavy criticism from wide swathes of Israeli society.

In Tel Aviv, protesters gathered outside a salon where Netanyahu's wife had gone to have her hair done late on Wednesday.

Agencies - Xinhua