Far-right lawmaker Zvi Sukkot and several of his aides smashed a Palestinian “Martyrs’ Monument” with sledgehammers in the West Bank village of Madama on Tuesday morning, during a military-escorted tour, drawing criticism from the army and politicians across the spectrum.

Footage first published by Palestinian media showed a soldier standing beside the Religious Zionism MK and the other men as they struck the monument to slain Palestinians, while other troops stood slightly further away beside an army vehicle.

The Israeli military said Sukkot’s trip had been authorized, but that the lawmaker and his aides had acted “deceptively and manipulatively” when they smashed the monument during the tour.

Sukkot later published his own footage of the destruction of the village’s “Martyrs’ Monument,” which commemorates residents of Madama who were killed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including terrorists.

Photos published by Palestinian media after the incident showed that the monument remained standing but had been significantly damaged.

In a statement, Sukkot said he acted because the Israel Defense Forces had failed to remove the monument and others in the West Bank commemorating Palestinian terrorists, despite a request he had previously made.

“We will not lend a hand to a situation in which those who harmed Jews and IDF soldiers are commemorated as heroes,” he said, calling on the military to remove what he described as “all monuments to terrorism” across the West Bank.

The monument at Madama honors several slain Palestinians, among them terrorists, including Yaman Tayeb Ali Faraj, who Sukkot said was involved in a 2003 suicide bombing at the Geha Junction in central Israel in which four people were murdered and over 20 injured, and Shadi Nasser, a Palestinian suicide bomber who injured 14 in an attack at the Eshel HaShomron Hotel in the West Bank settlement of Ariel in 2002.

The December 25, 2003, suicide attack in Geha was claimed by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terror group. Faraj, a PFLP commander, was killed by a missile fired from an IDF helicopter while fleeing arrest near Nablus in July 2004. A Palestinian lecturer and his son were also killed in the arrest operation, according to Palestinian media.

The IDF said that on August 12, Sukkot requested authorization to conduct a “tour of monuments” in the villages of Beita, Burin and Madama, located in areas A and B of the West Bank — where Israelis are normally barred from entering without military coordination. The tour was conducted on Tuesday morning “under the security of IDF troops who were diverted from their duties for this mission.”

Though Sukkot had been scheduled to visit the villages of Burin and Beita, the tour was cut short following the incident in Madama.

“Contrary to the coordination, the participants acted deceptively and........

© The Times of Israel