Geert Wilders, leader of the Netherlands’ opposition Party for Freedom, paid his respects on Sunday to the family of Israel Defense Forces Master Sgt. (res.) Benayahu Mellet, who was killed in a terrorist shooting in Samaria last week.
“I was in Havat Gilad today with the Governor of Samaria, Yossi Dagan, to pay my respect and give condolences to the widow—Esther—children and family of Benayahu Mellet, who was killed by a Palestinian terrorist,” Wilders wrote on X.
Mellet was shot and killed on Friday alongside IDF Maj. Yuval Ezra during an attack outside Havat Gilad (Gilad Farm). Six others were wounded in the shooting.
Wilders said he told the grieving widow during the visit on Sunday that “millions of people all over Europe support her.”
The Dutch leader toured Israel’s heartland at the invitation of Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, days after the Dutch government announced a ban on the imports of Jewish goods produced in Judea and Samaria.
“It’s your soil, it’s your land, it’s your history, it’s your religion, it’s everything that it’s supposed to be,” Wilders said during a visit to the northern Samaria community of Sa-Nur, according to a video released by the council.
“Yossi, I’m very proud to be here, with the Lion of Samaria,” he told Dagan.
The Samaria leader responded, “It’s so exciting to host you in Sa-Nur, in my home, in the heartland of Israel.” He added, “You’re a brave leader—I know what you’re doing for the future of Europe, and Holland and Israel.”
“You are the first leader that understood this,” Dagan said. “We must stand together, and we are fighting together.”
The Party for Freedom holds 19 seats in the Netherlands’ 150-member House of Representatives, following a January split in which seven lawmakers left the faction.
Wilders—a staunch supporter of Israel’s right to the entire Land of Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea—has said he visited the Jewish state more than 40 times. After graduating from high school, he spent a year volunteering at Moshav Tomer in the Jordan Valley.
In 2018, Wilders declared, “The more Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria, the better, for that land is Jewish—and Jordan is Palestine!”
