Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in domestic difficulty, promised Monday evening to “restore security” in his country after yet another outbreak of violence in the Middle East and two new deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Netanyahu also announced that he had reconsidered his decision announced at the end of March to dismiss his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, who had publicly been moved by the division caused in the country by the project of justice reform wanted by the government. , and had asked for a break in the process.
While violence between Israelis and Palestinians has been on an inexorable rise since the beginning of the year, after the inauguration of Mr. Netanyahu at the end of December at the head of one of the most right-wing governments in the history of Israel, the conflict has taken on a broader dimension in recent days.
Deadly attacks, rocket attacks from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, followed by Israeli reprisals: the region has been in the grip of a wave of violence since the brutal irruption, on April 5, in the middle of Ramadan, of the police in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site.
“The government, under my leadership, will restore calm and security to our country,” Netanyahu said. “We are acting on all fronts,” he said.
‘I promise you, we will reach out to all the vile terrorists who have killed our citizens and they will be held to account, without exception,’ PM says after shock in Israel over deaths of three family members in an attack on Friday in the northern occupied West Bank.
Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem announced Monday afternoon the death of Lucy Dee, a 48-year-old British Israeli, injured in the attack that claimed the lives of two of her daughters, aged 16 and 20.
Earlier, a 15-year-old Palestinian teenager, Mohamed Fayez Balhan, was killed during an Israeli military incursion into the Palestinian refugee camp of Aqabat Jaber, near Jericho, which the army said was intended to “arrest a suspect”.
The day after the intervention of the Israeli police in the Al-Aqsa mosque (in the eastern part, annexed to Jerusalem), officially to “restore order” in the face of “extremists” barricaded with stones and fire rockets fireworks, about thirty rockets had been fired from Lebanon towards Israel, injuring one person and causing material damage.
The Israeli army, which accuses the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, of being the source of these shots, responded by carrying out strikes on Gaza and southern Lebanon.
“We will not allow the terrorist Hamas to establish itself in Lebanon,” Netanyahu said Monday night. “We are still in the middle of the fight, we are ready for other strong actions on all fronts if necessary”, he added, also threatening to make Syria pay a “very heavy price” in the event of new rocket attack from its territory.
Mr. Netanyahu made these martial remarks when he appears very weak politically, with several polls giving the winning opposition in the event of an election today.
In Tel Aviv, a hotbed of protests against the justice reform project, several hundred demonstrators took to the streets to shout down the government and denounce Mr. Netanyahu’s speech, according to images from Israeli television.
On Friday evening, the Prime Minister announced the mobilization of reserve police units and military reinforcements, after a ram attack in Tel Aviv that claimed the life of an Italian tourist, and the death of the two Israeli sisters. British.
On Monday, several thousand Israeli settlers took part in a march towards Eviatar, a Jewish settlement not recognized by the Israeli authorities in the northern West Bank, to demand its legalization, AFP journalists noted.
Nearly three million Palestinians live in the West Bank. About 490,000 Jewish settlers also live there in settlements that the UN considers illegal under international law.
Several ministers and MPs took part in the march to Eviatar, including the Minister of Public Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, a far-right figure, who declared that “the response to terrorism is to build” more settlements.
11/04/2023 00:08:48 – Tel Aviv (AFP) © 2023 AFP
