Israel is preparing to reinforce its troops after the two attacks that claimed the lives of three people, the latest episodes of a new cycle of violence in the Middle East.
On Friday night, an Italian tourist was killed on the Tel Aviv waterfront and seven other people, ranging in age from 17 to 74, were injured by a car bomb. Police said the driver, who was shot dead, was from the Arab city of Kafr Qasim in central Israel. Three people are still being treated at the Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv for minor injuries.
Also last Friday, two settler sisters from the Israeli settlement of Efrat, aged 16 and 20, were killed and their mother seriously injured in another attack in the West Bank. The two sisters, of Israeli and British nationality, were victims of Palestinian fire on their vehicle in the northeast of this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Demonstrations against judicial reform continue despite Friday’s fatal attack in Tel Aviv
Following the attack in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Beniamin Netanyahu “ordered the Israeli police to mobilize all reserve units of the border police, and [al ejército] to mobilize additional forces to deal with terrorist attacks,” according to his office.
Police said four reserve border police battalions will be deployed to city centers this Sunday, in addition to units already mobilized in the mixed city of Lod and the Jerusalem area.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said the attack in Tel Aviv was a “natural and legitimate response” to the Israeli “aggression” on the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. These actions follow, in effect, the violence on Wednesday in the esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest place in Islam and the holiest place in Judaism, also the epicenter of tensions in the holy city.
The Israeli forces brutally broke into the interior of this mosque to evict the faithful, in the middle of Ramadan, and provoked numerous condemnations. Netanyahu claimed that Israeli forces had been “forced to act to restore order” against “extremists” entrenched in the mosque, while Hamas, which has fought several wars with Israel, denounced an “unprecedented crime”.
read also
Following these incidents, Israel carried out attacks against Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, in response to the launch of dozens of rockets into its territory.
The European Union on Saturday condemned the coups in Israel and the West Bank and the rocket attacks from Lebanon and called for “restraint.”
On the Israeli-Lebanese front, this is an unprecedented escalation since 2006. Hizbullah, a Lebanese Shiite organization with a strong presence in southern Lebanon, said that “the entire axis of resistance is on high alert,” after supporting “all the measures” that Palestinian groups could 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 for Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed in southern Lebanon. According to UN forces in Lebanon, “both sides have said they don’t want war.”
On the other hand, the attacks have not succeeded in dissuading the demonstrators who for three months have been protesting against the judicial reform that the Netanyahu government intends to undertake. Protest organizers went ahead with the planned march in Tel Aviv yesterday. “The protests against the dictatorship will continue as scheduled and in full coordination with the Israeli authorities. The planned march after the protest will not take place at the request of the police,” the organizers reported.
Since the beginning of January, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of at least 91 Palestinians, 18 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an Afp agency count drawn from official Israeli and Palestinian sources. These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.