Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday he will not renew the mandate of international observers in the flashpoint West Bank city of Hebron, effectively closing the mission.
The Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH) was established in the city following a massacre of Palestinians in 1994, but Netanyahu accused it of bias.
"We will not allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us," Netanyahu said in a statement released by his office on Twitter.
The premier did not specify why he had decided not to renew the mission's mandate, which had been renewed every six months since its creation.
The Norway-led team is comprised of 64 observers who are tasked with promoting a sense of security for Palestinians in Hebron, the largest city in the West Bank.
Its mission was created after 29 Palestinian worshippers were killed by an American-born Israeli settler at a Hebron shrine holy to both Muslims and Jews in 1994.
Observers carry out daily patrols and document rights abuses they witness, although they are not allowed to intervene.
The mission reports its findings to its member countries -- Italy, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey -- as well as the Israeli and Palestinian authorities.
Israel has in recent years accused some observers of failing to act impartially.
Since Israel partially withdrew from Hebron in 1998 under interim peace deals with the self-rule Palestinian Authority, the TIPH has “observe(d) and report(ed) on breaches of the agreements (and) violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” the force’s website says.
Most world powers consider Israel’s settlements in the West Bank, where Palestinians want a state, to be illegal. Israel disputes this, and the rightist Netanyahu has played up his pro-settler credentials as he seeks reelection in an April 9 ballot.
“They want to uproot us from here. They will not,” he said in separate remarks on Monday at another West Bank settlement.
“There’s a line of thought that says that the way to achieve peace with the Arabs is to be extirpated from our land. That is the certain path to achieving the opposite of this dream.”
