The armed attack by two Palestinians has killed four Israelis and wounded four others on Tuesday at a gas station near the Eli settlement in the West Bank.
Given the growing increase in attacks and especially after this Tuesday, voices are multiplying in Israel, including in the Government, in favor of a broad military offensive in the stronghold of the militias in the north of the West Bank. At the same time, and while the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) blames Israel for the escalation of the last year, Islamic Jihad and Hamas applaud the attack, pointing out that it is part of the response to the military incursion in Jenin that on Monday ended with armed clashes and the death of six Palestinians by shots from the Israeli forces.
After four in the afternoon, two members of the armed wing of Hamas arrived at the gasoline near Eli with a stolen car with Israeli license plates, opened fire in the restaurant and on its outskirts and killed four Israeli civilians (three youngsters aged 17, 18 and 21 years old and a 63-year-old man). One of the attackers was killed by a citizen who was armed. The other Palestinian managed to flee but two hours later he was located and killed near Nablus in an operation by the army and the anti-terrorist unit of the Police.
While the television networks broadcast the image, taken by the security camera of the place, of the two armed Palestinians, the loudspeakers of the adjacent neighborhood broadcast the message “Terrorist Penetration Alert” requesting the inhabitants not to leave their homes. “We are fed up with the Palestinian terrorist attacks that are incessant and bloody. There is no other remedy than a Defensive Shield II,” asked Eli’s manager, Ariel Elmaliaj, referring to the massive offensive launched in 2002 by the army in the West Bank after the suicide bombings in the Second Intifada (2000-2005).
Given the wave of attacks and due to the composition of his ultra-conservative coalition that won the elections in November in part due to his promises of a “strong hand in the face of terror” and to restore security to citizens”, the pressure on the Israeli prime minister , Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly ready to launch a large-scale offensive in the northern West Bank, where the absence of the PNA security forces is also notable.For now, Netanyahu and the Army prefer to continue with the almost daily raids.
“All options are open. We will continue to fight terrorism with all our might and we will crush it,” Netanyahu declared, adding: “Over the past few months, we have already shown that we settle accounts with all murderers, without exception. All those who harmed are in the grave or in prison”.
After the attack, groups of hooded settlers threw stones at several vehicles (and burned some), houses and other Palestinian property in the West Bank, causing several injuries and condemning the PNA, which denounced “their continuous attacks”. Three of them were detained by Israeli police on the outskirts of a village in the Nablus area.
Israeli security agencies are on high alert, especially in the West Bank territory occupied in the 1967 war. According to the internal security service (Shabak) there are around 180 alerts for Palestinian attacks. The one they couldn’t prevent this Tuesday in the center of the West Bank took place 24 hours after six Palestinians were killed – mostly Islamic Jihad armed forces but also a 15-year-old teenager – and 90 were injured in the Israeli raid to arrest two wanted members of Hamas and Jihad. Seven soldiers were injured as a result of Palestinian shooting and exploding devices at their vehicles on their way out of the Jenin area.
Following the raid in which for the first time since the Second Intifada the Israeli army used an Apache helicopter to help carry out the evacuation under fire, the Palestinian leadership in Jenin and Nablus combined euphoria at having hit military vehicles and calls for revenge for the death of their own.
“We welcome the heroic action on the road between Ramallah and Nablus and consider it a natural reaction to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. Threats do not scare us and the resistance is prepared for any escalation,” the spokesman for the Palestinians said. Islamic Jihad, Tarek Salami while that of Hamas, Hazem Qassem also related it to Jenin and promised: “The revolution will not stop until our people achieve freedom and independence.”
“The terrorists will not find a safe haven, neither in Jenin, nor in Nablus nor in Gaza,” added the head of Israeli Defense, Yoav Gallant, who did not rule out any possibility although he did not refer directly to a possible large-scale military operation. scale as required by various ministers. The most visceral was once again the Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, who went to the scene of the attack and who, also once again, was not summoned to participate in the meeting between Netanyahu and Gallant with the heads of the security organizations. being also highly criticized by government sources. At the meeting, it was decided to strengthen troop presence on West Bank roads and increase raids against militias in the northern West Bank.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project