Israeli army boosts forces in West Bank

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged a “strong, swift and precise” response to a deadly Palestinian shooting attack near a synagogue on Jerusalem’s outskirts as its military sends more troops into the occupied West Bank.

Seven people were killed in Friday’s attack, and two others were wounded in another shooting in the city on Saturday.

“We are not seeking escalation, but we are prepared for any scenario,” Netanyahu said as he convened his security cabinet which he said would seek an increase in gun permits for licensed civilians to defend against street attacks.

On Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy opened fire at a group of Israeli passers-by, wounding two before he was shot and wounded by one of them, police said.

The attack, which took place in Silwan, a Palestinian neighbourhood that lies below Jerusalem’s Old City walls, followed an Israeli raid in the West Bank city of Jenin that killed nine Palestinians, including seven gunmen en, and cross-border fire between Israel and Gaza.

An Israeli military representative said an additional battalion had been sent to the West Bank for reinforcement.

There was no sign, however, Israel was preparing for a large-scale operation and its brief cross-border exchange with Gaza ended with no casualties.

United States Secretary of State Anthony Blinken is due to arrive on Monday for a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank, where clashes have worsened for months.

Thursday’s raid was the deadliest in years in the West Bank, where Israel has stepped up operations since a spate of deadly Palestinian street attacks in its cities last year.

At least 30 Palestinians – militants and civilians – have been killed in the West Bank since the start of the month.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made no mention of the Jerusalem shootings in a statement published by the official Palestinian agency WAFA, and blamed Israel for the escalation in violence.

Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing powers in the West Bank, suspended security cooperation arrangements with Israel after Thursday’s Jenin raid.

Friday’s attack outside a synagogue was the deadliest in the Jerusalem area since 2008.

It took place in a neighbourhood on land that Israel annexed to Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Middle East war, in a move not recognised internationally.

The gunman, Khaire Alkam, was a 21-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem.

Among the dead was a 14-year-old boy, police said.

No group has claimed responsibility for the shooting and Alkam’s father told Reuters his son had no links to militants.

Forty-two suspects, including his family members, had been arrested, police said.

Netanyahu said he would also propose at the cabinet meeting sanctions against families of attackers.

Police said Alkam had opened fire with a handgun, hitting a number of people before he was killed by police.

Shimon Israel, 56, who lives nearby, said his family were starting their Sabbath dinner when they heard shooting and screaming.

He opened the window and saw his neighbour running on the street to get the police.

“I told him ‘Eli, don’t go there. Eli don’t go.’ He got married only a year ago. A good neighbour, like a brother. He ran. I saw him fall there,” Israel told Reuters.

“Natali, his wife, ran after him. She saw someone here and was trying to resuscitate him. The terrorist came and shot her from behind and got her too,” he said.

In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrating against Netanyahu’s plans to overhaul Israel’s judiciary began the protest with a minute’s silence for the dead.

The gunman was a relative of a 17-year-old Palestinian who was shot dead on Wednesday in clashes with Israeli forces in a Jerusalem refugee camp, his family said.

His father, Moussa Alkam, said he did not know whether his son was seeking revenge.

“He is neither the first nor the last young man to get martyred and what he did is a source of pride,” Alkam said.

TPS reports:

Israel’s security Cabinet convened on Saturday night to assess the situation after the two Palestinian terror attacks in Jerusalem killed seven Israelis and wounded six others.

Meanwhile, the Israeli Defense Forces boosted its forces in Judea and Samaria, and Israeli Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai called on Israelis with firearms licenses to carry their guns.

On Friday night, a Palestinian identified as Alqam Khayri, opened fire on people passing by a synagogue in the eastern Jerusalem neighbourhood of Neve Yaakov. He drove off towards the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Hanina but was confronted by responding police officers. Khayri shot at the police officers, who returned fire, killing him.

Seven Israelis were killed and four were injured.

Two of the dead were identified as Eli and Natali Mizrahi, a couple in their forties. According Eli Mizrahi’s father, they were eating their Sabbath dinner when they heard gunshots and ran outside to help.

Three other dead were identified as 14-year-old Asher Natan, 50-year-old Raphael Ben-Eliyahu, and Natalie Ziskind, 46, who was pronounced on arrival at the Hadassah Medical Center-Mount Scopus. The names of the other fatalities have not yet been released.

The hospital announced on Saturday night that a 15 year-old boy and a 20-year-old male were in moderate but stable condition after being operated on. The hospital said both were conscious. In addition, a 60-year-old woman was in moderate condition while a 24-year-old man was on a ventilator in serious but stable condition.

On Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy with a handgun shot two Israelis outside Jerusalem’s Old City. The victims were identified as a father and son. The son, an off-duty soldier, fired back, injuring his attacker. Both were evacuated to Jerusalem’s Shaare Zedek Medical Centre where both were listed in serious but stable condition.

Security footage posted online showed the boy waiting between a wall and some parked cars before he opened fire on a group of passersby.

The boy was identified as Muhammad Aliyat, who lived in the adjacent Silwan neighbourhood.

Palestinians in Jenin and Gaza celebrated the news of the attacks with fireworks. (TPS)

President Isaac Herzog said: “My heart breaks in the face of the terrible attacks that took place during Shabbat in Jerusalem.The attacks remind us again of a simple and painful truth: whatever the differences are within us, in the face of our enemies, who seek our harm and rise to kill us – we must maintain our unity,” he added.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting: “On behalf of the citizens of Israel, I would like to send my deepest condolences to the families of those who were murdered in this awful and despicable terrorist attack in our capital Jerusalem. This was a reprehensible attack at the entrance to a synagogue on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

I again call on the citizens of Israel: Do not take the law into your own hands. We are not in the days of the underground. We have a sovereign state, with an excellent military and security forces.”

The Zionist Federation of Australia condemned the horrific terrorist attack in which seven innocent Israelis were murdered in cold blood in Jerusalem on Friday night, and the second attack against a father and son on Saturday.

ZFA President Jeremy Leibler said, “This heinous act of violence is a stark reminder of the ongoing threat of terrorism faced by the people of Israel. To attack innocent prayer-goers in a place of worship is an act of pure cowardice. We condemn not just the perpetrator, but all those who celebrated this act, and their enablers around the world, whose obsessive hatred of Israel and use of moral equivalence encourages these types of attacks”.

Mr Leibler continued, “The Australian Jewish Community stands in solidarity with the people of Israel and reaffirms our commitment to Israel’s security and its right to self-defence. We call on the international community to condemn this act of terror”.

Mr Leibler welcomed the unequivocal condemnation of the attacks by Foreign Minister Penny Wong, which was issued shortly before a second attack in Jerusalem saw a father and son injured.

Mr Leibler concluded, “The Australian Jewish Community extends its deepest sympathies to the victims and their families, and a speedy recovery to the wounded. My God comfort them among the mourners of Zion”.

The Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s Executive Director, Dr Colin Rubenstein said, “This barbaric attack on civilians going about their worship on the holiest day of the week, and on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, demonstrates yet again the inhumanity of the terrorism Israel must face on a daily basis. It gives stark context to the Israeli raids on terror dens in the West Bank, and the other measures Israel is sadly forced to constantly take to defend its population in its efforts to thwart such repulsive attacks.

“Such attacks don’t happen in a vacuum. They are the result of constant and unremitting incitement to hatred and violence by the Palestinian Authority, including constant messaging on all forms of media and generous lifelong pensions by the PA to terrorists and their families, together with outright blatant calls from Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and their Iranian backers to kill Jews and eliminate Israel.

“We were also horrified to see the jubilant celebrations that broke out in several Palestinian cities in the West Bank and Gaza in response to this heinous taking of innocent life. The PA could have had a state living peacefully alongside Israel many times over had it simply accepted repeated generous offers, or negotiated in good faith at peace talks, but instead prefers to remain in a state of conflict and rejectionism, dishonestly blaming Israel for all of its people’s woes.

“We call on the international community to not only condemn this appalling attack, but also to condemn in the strongest terms the all-pervasive PA incitement, and work with Israel to end it.

“We send our condolences to the loved ones of those so tragically killed and our wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured,” Dr Rubenstein concluded.

Report: AAP/TPS/J-Wire