An Israeli MP attacked a Palestinian monument with a sledgehammer on Tuesday, August 25, while Israeli soldiers who escorted him stood nearby in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
The attack comes amid rising violence by Israelis against Palestinians after Tel Aviv broke the ceasefire terms with a surprise attack in March 2025. According to the Gaza Government Media Office, Israel violated the ceasefire agreement at least 4,379 times over 315 days, leaving 1,286 Palestinians dead and 4,257 injured.
A video of the incident shows far-right Knesset lawmaker Zvi Sukkot smashing the limestone monument in the Palestinian village of Madama in Nablus, while the Israeli soldiers stood by and recorded the incident.
Defending his actions, Sukkot later said that the monument listed names of people who attacked Israelis.
The Israeli military separated itself from the lawmaker, in a statement saying Sukkot was touring Palestinian communities with his aides on Tuesday. While under the protection of soldiers, he had acted “deceptively and manipulatively, without authorization, departing entirely from the approved framework, and began demolishing one of the monuments in Madama,” the statement read.
The Israeli military said that the soldiers present at the scene had “reported it to their commanders, who instructed them to stop the activity,” and that Sukkot and his aides had been immediately “escorted out of the village.”
They rejected any claims that “the soldiers stood by idly” as it “directly contradicts what happened in practice,” adding that the soldiers had halted the demolition “within minutes.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office said that taking the law into one’s hands “particularly by public figures, is unacceptable.”
Bezalel Smotrich, Israel’s finance minister and the leader of Sukkot’s party, said Israel should have dismantled the “terror monument” long ago. There were several other such monuments across the West Bank that the Israeli military should destroy, he said.
The monument in Madama demonstrates an outline of all the territory between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River with the inscription of “Palestine” in Arabic. According to Rami Nassar, Madama’s mayor, the monument features the names of “people killed by the enemy,” including those from decades ago.
One name is that of Yamen Faraj, a Palestinian commander of the Abu Ali Mustapha Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Israeli authorities have alleged that Faraj was part of a suicide bombing in 2003.
The monument still stands. However, the damage done by the lawmaker left it beyond repair, the mayor said. Nassar expressed outrage over the incident, calling out the military for failing to quickly intervene.
“They provided a shield for this criminal act. We’re living in a situation that is becoming more and more extreme,” he told The New York Times.
