Palestinian Authority security forces plan to crack down on acts of terrorism carried out by Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank, an official said Saturday.

PA security spokesman Adnan Dmeiri told Ma’an: “We will take legal procedures and do everything we can do against them [Israeli settlers] as war criminals who committed crimes against humanity.”

When asked about practical steps expected to be taken by the PA forces against settlers who commit violent acts against Palestinians, Dmeiri said: “We consider them wanted by the Palestinian security.”

His statements come a day after suspected Israeli settlers carried out an arson attack in the occupied West Bank village of Doma that left 18-month-old Ali Saad Dawabsha dead.

An autopsy report later confirmed the infant had been burned alive and left Dawabsha’s mother, father, and four-year-old brother with severe burns over the majority of their bodies.

Dmeiri did not elaborate further on how the PA security forces would carry out plans to access or prosecute Israeli settlers for attacks, and highlighted his doubt that the Israeli government will take legal procedures against them.

“The Israeli government supports settlers financially, helps provide houses for them and provides them with arms, so how can this government take legal procedures against them?” Dmeiri asked.

Israeli settlers living in the occupied West Bank are under full jurisdiction of the Israeli government and are generally tried in Israeli civil courts.

Whose court?

As PA security forces work in coordination with Israel and have no jurisdiction over Israelis living illegally in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Palestinian leadership turned to the international community following Friday’s arson attack.

Several factions also called for Palestinians themselves to escalate resistance against Israel.

Dmeiri had written on his personal Facebook page on Friday that by supporting settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank, the Israeli government is supporting terrorism.

“We demand that the world and America — who always sides with Israel — to label settler organizations as terrorist organizations,” Dmeiri wrote.

The US State Department’s 2013 Country Reports on Terrorism included price-tag attacks — attacks carried out against Palestinians and their property — for the first time, and said such attacks were “largely unprosecuted.”

Despite announcements by the Israeli government in May 2014 to crack down on violent attacks carried out by Israeli settlers against Palestinians, prosecution rates remain remarkably low.

Widespread condemnation by Israeli leadership and the US of Friday’s arson attack as “terrorism” was rejected by Palestinian leadership and rights groups as empty.

“Official condemnations of this attack are empty rhetoric as long as politicians continue their policy of avoiding enforcement of the law on Israelis who harm Palestinians, and do not deal with the public climate and the incitement which serve as backdrop to these acts,” Israeli rights group B’Tselem said.

Under what the group has called an “undeclared policy of the Israeli authorities in response to these attacks as lenient and conciliatory,” Israeli perpetrators of attacks are rarely tried and elementary police investigations are often never started.

“In light of this, the clock is ticking in the countdown to the next arson attack, and the one after,” the group added.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas vowed Friday to take the death of 18-month-old Dawabsha to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

The case will join several brought against Israel by Palestinian leadership to the ICC, including charges of war crimes by Israeli forces during last summer’s war in the Gaza Strip.

Rights groups argue that Israel’s current investigation mechanisms are not capable of conducting credible independent investigations into suspected violations of international law. MAANNEWS