A foreign ministry spokesman, Emmanuel Nahshon, said on Wednesday that “given the incendiary and aggressive nature” of Margot Wallström’s comments, “we have made it clear that she is not welcome in Israel”.
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Since October 1, Palestinian stabbings, car-rammings and gun attacks have killed 24 Israelis and a United States citizen.
Also Monday, the Israeli military said forces shot and wounded a knife-wielding Palestinian who the military said attempted to stab a soldier in the West Bank, the latest in a four month-long wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence that is roiling the region.
Palestinian security sources said he later died at the al-Mizan Hospital in Hebron, with the health ministry identifying the alleged attacker as 23-year-old Mohammed Kowazba and the driver as 17-year-old Adnan al-Mashti.
Ties between Sweden and Israel nose-dived after Sweden recognised the Palestine state shortly after Wallstrom’s centre-left Social Democrats won general elections in 2014.
The Israeli army did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The rift then deepened further when she described the Palestinians” plight as a factor leading to radicalization.
Israel has stepped up such punitive demolitions in an effort to deter attacks but it is condemned by rights groups as collective punishment against entire families.
“What (Hotovely) was really saying is that it can’t be that a foreign minister that wants to be an interlocutor… would take such an absurd and unacceptable position”, said Uri Resnick, adding that Wallstrom was “blaming the victim”.
Some 170 Palestinians and 26 Israelis were killed during 2015 in attacks in the occupied territories and Israel, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
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A Jerusalem court on Wednesday was to hold a sentencing hearing in the case of two Israeli men convicted a year ago of abducting and murdering a Palestinian teenager, AFP reports. His wife, Faihaa al-Qeq, said Israel “accused him of incitement”.
