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Israel reinforces its troops on Saturday (8) after two attacks that killed three people, amid a new cycle of violence in the Middle East. The European Union asked Israelis and Palestinians for “calm” in the middle of the Easter weekend.
On Friday night, an Italian tourist was killed in Tel Aviv and seven other people, aged between 17 and 74, were injured after a car rammed into a bicycle path on the edge of the city. Police said the driver, a 45-year-old man who was shot, was from the Arab town of Kfar Kassem in central Israel.
Three people are still hospitalized at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv with minor injuries, the hospital said on Saturday.
On Friday, two sisters from the Israeli settlement of Efrat, aged 16 and 20, were killed and their mother seriously injured in an attack in the West Bank. The two sisters, of Israeli and British nationality, were victims of shots at the car they were in, when passing through the northeast of this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
On Saturday, the Israeli Army in the West Bank said it was attacked overnight near the Palestinian village of Yabad (north). The military “shot towards the aggressors” who were in a vehicle and “a person hit was identified”, according to a press release.
military mobilization
After the attack in Tel Aviv, which took place on the night of the Jewish Shabbat and during the Jewish Passover week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “ordered the Israeli police to mobilize all reserve units of the border police and [ao Exército] to mobilize additional forces to deal with terrorist attacks,” the prime minister’s office said.
Police said four reserve border police battalions would be deployed to city centers on Sunday, in addition to units already deployed in the mixed city of Lod and the Jerusalem area.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas declared that the attack in Tel Aviv was a “natural and legitimate response” to Israeli “aggression” on the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The current increase in tension was triggered by an operation by Israeli forces to remove worshipers from the Esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest place in Islam and the holiest place in Judaism, on Wednesday (5), in the middle of Ramadan – the period Muslim fasting.
Netanyahu said Israeli forces were “forced to act to restore order” in the face of “extremists” barricaded in the mosque. Hamas, which has fought several wars with Israel, denounced an “unprecedented crime”.
In the following days, Israel carried out attacks against Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, in response to the launch of dozens of rockets against its territory. The Israeli army claimed that the unclaimed gunfire was “Palestinian” and likely Hamas.
Avoid “carnage”
The European Union on Saturday condemned the attacks in Israel and the West Bank and the rocket attacks from Lebanon, calling for “restraint”. The head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, asked the parties to “promote calm” in this period of religious festivities.
“Israel has the right to defend itself. At the same time, any answer must be proportionate. The European Union calls for an immediate end to the ongoing violence. Everything must be done to stop the conflict from spreading,” Borrell said in a statement.
On the Lebanese-Israeli front, this is an unprecedented escalation since 2006. Prime Minister Netanyahu has vowed to make Israel’s “enemies” pay a “heavy price” for “every aggression” against his country.
Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite organization with a strong presence in southern Lebanon, said “the entire axis of resistance is on high alert”, after supporting “all measures” that Palestinian groups can take against Israel.
Israel and Lebanon are technically in a state of war after different conflicts and the ceasefire line is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force (Unifil), deployed in southern Lebanon. According to Unifil, “both parties have said they do not want war”.
Qatar, which in the past mediated between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, is “working to de-escalate” to “avoid carnage”, an official in the emirate told AFP on Friday. Since early January, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has killed at least 91 Palestinians, 18 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources.
These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, most of the victims are civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.
With information from AFP