A Palestinian soldier killed in a shooting at a security checkpoint in east Jerusalem, according to Israel Defense Forces: “Our hearts are with the wounded and our loved ones,” the prime minister said
An Israeli soldier was killed in a shooting at a military checkpoint in East Jerusalem on Saturday, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
The Border Police stated that a suspect arrived at the Shuafat crossing and fired at security forces and that a shot was fired from a passing vehicle. Border Guard forces are searching for the suspects.”
A male in serious condition was taken to a hospital while another female is in mild condition, according to emergency services in Israel.
The shooting happened at a checkpoint of the normally quiet area near the Shuafat Refugee Camp in East Jerusalem, an area considered occupied by most of the international community.
In a statement, Prime Minister Yair Lapid called the situation “serious” and said “many forces are deployed in the field and work day and night to protect the citizens of Israel. Our hearts tonight are with the victims and their families. Terror will not defeat us, we are strong, even on this difficult evening.”
The ministry of health said the youngest person was 14-year-old Daoud, who was shot Friday near the separation wall.
When asked for comment about Daoud’s death, the Israel Defense Forces said “during IDF routine operational activity, IDF soldiers spotted a suspect who hurled Molotov cocktails at them adjacent to the city of Qalqilya. The soldiers responded with live fire. A hit was identified. The incident is under review.”
Dozens of Palestinians threw devices at soldiers and shots were fired at them. The soldiers opened fire on the suspects. The hits were identified.
Last year, as the Israeli military intensified its arrest raids following a string of deadly Palestinian attacks within Israel, at least 150 Palestinians were killed in the occupied West Bank and east Jerusalem. It was the highest annual death toll for more than a decade and a half. Israeli figures show that over 30 people were killed in Palestinian attacks against them last year.
The IDF said forces were in the Jenin refugee camp to arrest an “Islamic Jihad operative” who it claims was “involved in terrorist activities, planning and carrying out shooting attacks towards IDF soldiers in the area.”
Tensions between Israelis and Palestinians have been surging for months, amid nightly Israeli raids in the occupied West Bank prompted by a spate of deadly attacks against Israelis that killed 19 people in the spring. There has been an uptick in recent weeks in Palestinian attacks.
Israel has been regularly raiding cities and villages in the occupied West Bank, saying it is targeting militants and their weapon caches before they have the chance to cross into Israel and carry out attacks. The military operation was launched after a series of attacks against Israelis. Over 20 Israelis and foreigners have been killed in attacks in Israel and the West Bank so far this year.
“The mounting violence in the occupied West Bank is fueling a climate of fear, hatred and anger. Wennesland said it’s important to reduce tensions immediately to open the space for important initiatives.
The explosions in Jenin and Ramot: Israel must return to be in control of Israel, says Israel’s Prime Minister Aryeh Shechopek
The first explosion was close to a bus stop on the edge of the city. The second went off in Ramot, a settlement in the city’s north. Police said one person died from their wounds and at least three were seriously wounded in the blasts.
A notice announcing the death of the teenager named Aryeh Shechopek was posted on the wall of the seminary. Shechopek was a Canadian citizen, according to the Canada’s Ambassador to Israel. There were conflicting reports about Shechopek’s age.
In Jenin late Tuesday, militants entered a hospital and removed the Israeli teen wounded in a car accident. The young man was from Israel’s Druze minority. His father, who was in the hospital room with him, said the militants disconnected him from hospital equipment and took him while still alive. The Israeli military said the young man was already dead when he was taken.
The developments took place as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding coalition talks after national elections and is likely to return to power as head of what’s expected to be Israel’s most right-wing government ever.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, an extremist lawmaker who has called for the death penalty for Palestinian attackers and who is set to become the minister in charge of police under Netanyahu, said the attack meant Israel needed to take a tougher stance on Palestinian violence.
At the scene of the first explosion, he said “we must exact a price from terror.” “We must return to be in control of Israel, to restore deterrence against terror.”
Police who were searching for the suspected attackers found devices at the two sites. The first explosion went off as rush hour traffic was pouring in, but police briefly closed part of the main highway leading out of the city due to the second blast. Video from shortly after the initial blast showed debris strewn along the sidewalk as the wail of ambulances blared. A bus was scythed down with what looked like bombs.
“It was a crazy explosion,” Yosef Haim Gabay, a medic who was at the scene when the first blast occurred, told Israeli Army Radio. People with wounds were bleeding all over the place.
While Palestinians have carried out stabbings, car rammings and shootings in recent years, bombing attacks have become very rare since the end of a Palestinian uprising nearly two decades ago.
The Islamic militant Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and once carried out suicide bombings against Israelis, praised the perpetrators of the attacks, calling it a heroic operation, but stopped short of claiming responsibility.
In the wake of the blasts, Israel said it was closing two West Bank crossings to Palestinians near the city of Jenin, a militant stronghold.
The Israelis and the Palestinians: Against Israel and Against the State’s Right-Wings in West Bank and Anti-West Bank
“It was something horrendous. It was something that was inhumane,” Husam Ferro, the teen’s father, told Israeli news site YNet. “He was still alive and they took him in front of my eyes and I couldn’t do anything.”
The Druze leader has told YNet that talks are under way on the body returning to the family. In the past, Palestinian militant carried out kidnappings to get concessions from Israel. Lapid said the militants would “pay a heavy price” if the body was not returned.
Two people were wounded, one of which was an Israeli man and his son, when a 13 year old Palestinian boy opened fire elsewhere in east Jerusalem. Medics said that both were in the hospital with serious but stable conditions.
The Palestinians want all of the three areas for a future state. Israel has annexed part of east Jerusalem in a way that is not internationally recognized and still considers the whole city to be its capital.
All that is now threatened. Right-wing parties have an absolute majority in the Knesset and Mr. Netanyahu, who is hoping that the new government will save him from prosecution and possible prison time, is powerless. The Israeli Supreme Court, which has been left out of a constitution, has served to weigh government actions against international law and the state’s own traditions and values. The nationalists would diminish this authority by voting to give themselves the power to override Supreme Court decisions. Not incidentally, they have also proposed eliminating the law under which Mr. Netanyahu faces a possible prison term.
These moves are troubling, and America’s leaders should say so. The Biden administration’s main response so far has been a cautious speech by Secretary of State Antony Blinken to the liberal advocacy group J Street on Dec. 4, in which he declared that the United States would deal with Israeli policies, not individuals. The administration has already discussed how to manage their meetings with the most extreme members of the new cabinet, even though the State Department doesn’t have a well-defined position.
Netanyahu vowed to allow wildcat settlement outposts to be legalized in the coalition agreement with Religious Zionism. He also promises to annex the West Bank “while choosing the timing and considering the national and international interests of the state of Israel.”
The coalition agreements, released a day before the government is to be sworn into office, also included language endorsing discrimination against LGBTQ people on religious grounds, contentious judicial reforms, as well as generous stipends for ultra-Orthodox men who prefer to study instead of work.
The package lays the groundwork for what is expected to be a turbulent beginning for the country’s foremost religious and right-wing government in history, potentially putting it at odds with large parts of the Israeli public, and heightening tensions with the Palestinians.
“What worries me the most is that these agreements change the democratic structure of what we know of as the state of Israel,” said Tomer Naor, chief legal officer of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a watchdog group. Some of the changes will be irreversible, after one day when Netanyahu isn’t going to be prime minister.
The Palestinian Authority and the War of the West Bank: The Case for a Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
The guidelines stated that settlement should be “advanced and developed in all parts of the land of Israel” including the West Bank.
Most people in the international community agree that Israel’s West Bank settlements are illegal and an obstacle to peace. The United States already has warned the incoming government against taking steps that could further undermine hopes for an independent Palestinian state.
In response to a request for comment, the Palestinian leadership emphasized that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved only through the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital.
Without a negotiated two-state solution, “there will be no peace, security or stability in the region,” said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
The deal also grants favors to Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician who will be in charge of the national police force as the newly created national security minister.
It includes a commitment to expand and vastly increase government funding for the Israeli settlements in the divided West Bank city of Hebron, where a tiny ultranationalist Jewish community lives in heavily fortified neighborhoods amid tens of thousands of Palestinians. Ben-Gvir lives close to a settlement.
The country’s anti- discrimination laws will be changed to allow businesses to refuse service to people if they have a religious belief.
The legislation drew outrage earlier this week when members of Ben-Gvir’s party said the law could be used to deny services to LGBTQ people. The clause in the coalition agreement was left by Netanyahu, but he will not let the law pass.
But he leveled criticism at the “feckless military government” that controls key aspects of life for Israeli settlements — such as construction, expansion and infrastructure projects. Smotrich, who will also be finance minister, is expected to push to expand construction and funding for settlements while stifling Palestinian development in the territory.
Smotrich wrote in the Wall Street Journal that annexation wouldn’t happen immediately and that there would be no changes to the political or legal status of the West Bank.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict: condemning the attack on the holy site of Jerusalem, calling for a resolution of the “red lines” crisis
Critics say the law will undermine government checks and balances and erode a critical democratic institution. They also say Netanyahu has a conflict of interest in pushing for the legal overhaul because he is currently on trial for corruption charges.
“Since (the new government’s) intention is to weaken the Supreme Court, we’re not going to have the court as an institution that would help guard the principles of freedom and equality,” Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, a Jerusalem think tank, told reporters.
Two of Netanyahu’s key ministers — incoming interior minister Aryeh Deri and Ben-Gvir — have criminal records. Deri, who served time in prison in 2002 for bribery, pleaded guilty to tax fraud earlier this year, and Netanyahu and his coalition passed a law this week to allow him to serve as a minister despite his conviction. Ben-Gvir was convicted in 2009 of inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization.
In a rare meeting with Ben-Gvri, one of the coalition’s most radical members, the president expressed deep concern about the incoming government’s stances on gay marriage, racism and the Arab minority. Ben-Gvir was urged to calm the winds.
The government platform also mentioned that the loosely defined rules governing holy sites, including Jerusalem’s flashpoint shrine known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, would remain the same.
Ben-Gvir and other Religious Zionism politicians had called for the “status quo” to be changed to allow Jewish prayer at the site, a move that risked inflaming tensions with the Palestinians. There is an emotional epicenter to the decades-long Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In an interview with CNN published Wednesday, King Abdullah II of Jordan warned that his country would respond if Israel crossed red lines and tried to change the status of the sacred Jerusalem site, over which Jordan has custodianship.
Israel will take new steps to strengthen the settlements this week in response to public celebrations over the attack. It didn’t give any further information.
The announcement cast a cloud over a visit next week by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and threatened to further raise tensions following one of the bloodiest months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem in several years.
The Israeli killings of a synagogue and a Jewish teen killed in the wake of the Friday night shooting at the Zoro Moser Synagogues
Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet, which is filled with politicians linked to the West Bank settlement movement, approved measures in the wake of a pair of shootings, including an attack on a synagogue that killed seven people.
In addition, Netanyahu could come under pressure from members of his government, a collection of religious and ultranationalist politicians, to take even tougher action. Such steps could cause more violence for the Hamas group in Gaza.
“If it’s even possible to put this violent genie back into the bottle, even for a little while, this would require the reinforcement and proper deployment of forces … and carefully managing the crisis without being guided by the widespread calls for revenge,” wrote Amos Harel, the defense affairs commentator for the Haaretz newspaper.
Friday’s shooting, outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem on the Jewish Sabbath, left seven Israelis dead and three wounded before the gunman was killed by police. The attack on Israelis was the worst in 15 years.
Authorities published the names of four of the victims. They included 14-year-old Asher Natan; Eli Mizrahi, 48, and his wife Natali, 45; and Rafael Ben Eliyahu, 56. The funerals for some of the victims were going to happen Saturday night.
Mourners lit memorial candles near the synagogue on Saturday evening, and in a sign of the charged atmosphere, a crowd assaulted an Israeli TV crew that came to the area, chanting “leftists go home.”
Ella Sakovich, an aunt of Natali Mizrahi, said that her niece had been celebrating the Jewish Sabbath with her husband and his father when they heard gunfire outside on Friday night.
Natali and her husband went out of their house to help the wounded after shooting them, according to a statement released by Hadassah Hospital.
In response to the shooting, Israeli police beefed up activities throughout east Jerusalem and said they had arrested 42 people, including family members, who were connected to the shooter.
As police rushed to the scene, two passers-by with licensed weapons shot and overpowered the 13-year-old attacker, police said. The wounded teen was taken to a hospital by the police.
Source: https://www.npr.org/2023/01/29/1152383010/israel-is-moving-to-strengthen-settlements-after-shooting-attacks
Palestinian Rights and Freedoms in Israel: The Case of Ben-Ggir, a New Minister of National Security and the Israeli High Commissioner for Human Rights
The deputy US ambassador is expected to arrive in Israel on Monday. The Biden administration condemned the shooting and called for calm, but gave no idea of how it would promote these goals.
Palestinian residents of east Jerusalem hold permanent residency status, allowing them to work and move freely throughout Israel, but they suffer from subpar public services and are not allowed to vote in national elections.
Itamar Ben-Ggir, the new Minister of national security in Israel, has taken the media by storm with his promises to take even harsher action against the Palestinians.
Speaking to reporters at a hospital where victims were being treated, Ben-Gvir said he wanted the home of the gunman in Friday’s attack to be sealed off immediately as a punitive measure and lashed out at Israel’s attorney general for delaying his order.
The divisive issue helped fuel weekly protests by Israelis who say the sweeping proposed changes would weaken the Supreme Court and undermine democracy.
Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in the central city of Tel Aviv Saturday evening for a new protest. Some people put up banners stating that Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir were a threat to world peace.
The security coordination with Israel was halted because of the deadly raid in Jenin.
The Palestinian Authority called on the international community and the U.S. administration to exert pressure on Israel to stop its raids in the West Bank.