Israel's prime minister demanded international condemnation of the murder of five members of a Jewish settler family that Palestinian militants said was in reprisal for Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Netanyahu's robust statement In his televised speech placed what he described as a despicable act – which shattered the relative calm in the West Bank over recent months – at the centre of strenuous efforts by the US and European countries to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
"I expect the international community to sharply and unequivocally condemn this murder, the murder of children. I have noticed that several countries that always hasten to the UN security council in order to condemn Israel, the state of the Jews, for planning a house in some locality … have been dilatory in sharply condemning the murder of Jewish infants. I expect them to issue such condemnations immediately, without balances, without understandings, without justifications. There is no justification and there can be neither excuse nor forgiveness for the murder of children."
He said he was disappointed in the reaction from the Palestinian Authority. Earlier he had blamed its "incitement against Israel" for the attack.
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, telephoned Netanyahu to condemn the attack. "Violence will only bring more violence," he said, urging a comprehensive agreement to end the conflict. Salam Fayyad, the Palestinian prime minister, said that "violence does not justify violence … whoever does it and whoever the victims are".
Netanyahu, according to a statement issued by his office, told Abbas it was not enough to condemn the violence because it “is against Palestinian interests” – as the Palestinians have done many times in the past – but because it is morally unacceptable.
“I expect that you stop the incitement in the schools, school books and mosques, and educate your children toward peace, as we do,” Netanyahu said. “The murder of children in their sleep is murder for the sake of murder.”
Netanyahu, who said that the country was “supporting and embracing” both the relatives of the victims and “our brothers, the residents of Judea and Samaria,” called on everyone in the country to act with “restraint and responsibly,” and not take the law into their own hands. Taking the law into one’s hands, he said, leads to a situation where “there is no law. The IDF and the security forces, and only them, will carry out their responsibilities.”
Netanyahu, who said that the Jews of Judea and Samaria should “not let their spirits falter,” stated that the country’s national interests – “first and foremost security” – would determine the settlement map.
“Terrorism will not determine the settlement map; we will,” he said.
The dead were named as Udi Fogel, 36, his wife Ruth, 35, and children Yoav, 11, Elad, four, and Hadas, three months. The family previously lived in the Gush Katif settlement in the Gaza Strip, which was evacuated in 2005, and recently moved to Itamar.
Rabbi Yaakov Cohen, a neighbour who entered the house with the 12-year-old girl, told the Ynet website that her two-year-old brother "was lying next to his bleeding parents, shaking them with his hands and trying to get them to wake up, while crying … The sight in the house was shocking."
According to an Israeli settlement security official who visited the scene of the attack, one or two intruders scaled the security fence surrounding Itamar and entered the family's home through a window. The father, said the official, who did not want to be named, was a teacher in a religious school.
The al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, the armed wing of Fatah, the dominant political faction in the West Bank, said it had carried out the "heroic operation … in response to the fascist occupation against our people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip".
A statement from the White House said there was "no possible justification for the killings of parents and children in their home". Britain's foreign secretary, William Hague, denounced the attack as "an act of incomprehensible cruelty".