Israel is preparing to mobilize additional security forces in the aftermath of two attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank, which killed at least three people, Friday, April 7. These attacks come against the backdrop of an upsurge in violence in recent days in the Middle East.
In Tel Aviv, an Italian tourist was killed on the seafront, and seven other people, aged 17 to 74, were injured in a car-ramming attack. Police said the 45-year-old driver who was shot dead was from Kafr Qassem, an Arab town in central Israel. Three people are still being treated at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv for minor injuries, the facility said on Saturday.
Following the attack, which occurred on a Shabbat night and during Passover week, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu promised to make Israel's "enemies" pay "a heavy price" for "every attack against his country. He also “ordered the Israel Police to mobilize all reserve Border Police units, and [the army] to mobilize additional forces to deal with terrorist attacks,” according to his office.
Police said four reserve Border Police battalions would be deployed starting Sunday in city centers, in addition to units already mobilized in the mixed city of Lod and the Jerusalem area.
Two women killed in the West Bank
A second attack, earlier Friday in the West Bank, killed two sisters from the Israeli settlement of Efrat, aged 16 and 20. Their mother is seriously injured. The two women, of Israeli and British nationalities, were victims of Palestinian fire on their vehicle, in the northeast of this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
In the West Bank, the Israeli army said on Saturday that it came under fire overnight near the Palestinian village of Yabad (north). The soldiers "fired in the direction of the attackers" who were in a vehicle and a person hit was "identified", according to an army statement.
Washington and the European Union condemn these attacks
Within the international community, the European Union (EU) on Saturday condemned in a statement the attacks in Israel and the West Bank as well as the rocket attacks from Lebanon, calling for "restraint". "The EU expresses its total condemnation of these acts of violence," said European Foreign Minister Josep Borrell. "We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint," he added.
In France, the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs condemned "in the strongest terms the terrorist attack", assuring Israel of its "solidarity".
On the side of Washington, the United States "stands alongside" Israel, assured a spokesman for American diplomacy. "Targeting innocent citizens of any nationality is impermissible," State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said in a statement.
A resurgence of violence
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claimed the Tel Aviv attack was a "natural and legitimate response" to Israeli "aggression" on the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A statement that is part of a new cycle of violence in the Middle East that has occurred for several days.
Violence erupted on Wednesday on the Esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism, also the epicenter of tensions in Jerusalem. Israeli forces brutally burst into the Al-Aqsa mosque to dislodge worshipers in the middle of Ramadan, prompting widespread condemnation, local and international.
Binyamin Netanyahu claimed that Israeli forces had been "forced to act to restore order" in the face of "extremists" barricaded in the mosque, while Hamas, which has fought several wars with Israel, denounced a "crime unprecedented ".
After the violence in Jerusalem, Israel carried out strikes targeting Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, in response to the firing of dozens of rockets on its territory. The Israeli army claimed that the unclaimed shots were "Palestinian", and probably Hamas. On the Israeli-Lebanese front, this is an unprecedented escalation since 2006.
