JERUSALEM, Jan. 28 (Xinhua) -- Israel announced on Monday that the mandate of the Temporary International Presence in Hebron (TIPH), a civilian observer mission in the West Bank city, will not be extended.
The move means the mostly-European group, which has been operating in the flashpoint city of Hebron as a peacekeeping force over the past 15 years, might be removed from the city.
The Prime Minister's Office said in a statement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had decided not to renew TIPH's mandate.
"We will not allow the continuation of an international force that acts against us," Netanyahu said in the statement.
The move came in the wake of allegations by pro-settler activists that TIPH members have operated against settlers and soldiers. Video footages surfaced on social networks last July showed a TIPH member allegedly slapping a ten-year-old Israeli boy and another member was caught on video allegedly puncturing tires of settlers' cars.
Earlier in January 2019, Interior Minister Gilad Erdan handed Netanyahu a police report accusing TIPH of clashing with troops in the city and hampering their work. Erdan asked Netanyahu not to renew the mandate that allows TIPH to operate in Hebron.
TIPH's mandate should be renewed every six months by both Israel and the Palestinian National Authority. Its current mandate would be expired on January 31.
TIPH observers are civilians from Norway, Denmark, Italy, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey.
The group was first established in 1994 following a call by the United Nations Security Council for an international presence in Hebron to protect the Palestinians, after a Jewish settler on shooting spree had killed 29 Palestinian worshipers earlier that same year.
Hebron, one of the most tensed cities in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, is home to some 200,000 Palestinians and a few hundred Jewish settlers who live there in a heavily guarded enclave.
The settlements are located on lands which Israel seized during the 1967 Middle East war. Most of the international community has repeatedly condemned the settlements as a breach of international law and a hurdle to peace.
