Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the police to mobilize “all reserve border police units,” the prime minister’s office said after the attack in Tel Aviv, which took place during the Sabbath and Passover holidays. In addition, Netanyahu instructed the army to “mobilize additional forces to counter the terrorist attacks,” the office said.
The police in Tel Aviv spoke of a “terrorist attack on civilians” in which a vehicle was used as a battering ram. The driver was killed.
According to the Italian government, the tourist killed was a 36-year-old man. Seven other tourists between the ages of 17 and 74 were injured, according to police and rescue workers. According to a Tel Aviv hospital, three Britons and one Italian were among the injured.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, two sisters, aged 16 and 20, from the settlement of Efrat had previously been killed in a gun attack. Her mother was seriously injured. The Israeli army said the vehicle was attacked by Palestinians north of the Jordan Valley. The sisters therefore had Israeli and British nationality. No one initially claimed responsibility for the attack.
The US condemned the attacks “on innocent civilians”. The State Department in Washington emphasized Israel’s right to self-defense. “The United States stands with the Israeli government and the Israeli people,” said ministry spokesman Vedant Patel.
The situation in the Middle East has deteriorated massively in the midst of the Jewish Passover holiday and the Muslim month of fasting. The escalation follows clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in midweek at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site. Judaism reveres the Temple Mount there as its holiest place.
The deployment of the Israeli police had sparked international criticism, and Hamas, the ruling party in the Gaza Strip, spoke of an “unprecedented crime” committed by Israel during Ramadan.
At least 34 rockets were “launched from Lebanon into Israeli territory” on Thursday, the Israeli army said. Five rockets landed in northern Israel and 25 others were intercepted. It was the most violent escalation on the border since the confrontation between the radical Islamic militia Hezbollah and Israel in the Lebanon war in 2006.
Israel responded with attacks on targets in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, the army said. According to the information, “infrastructure” of the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas was attacked in Lebanon in an area where a Palestinian refugee camp is also located. The Lebanese army said it had discovered and destroyed launch pads in southern Lebanon.
Israel accused Palestinian activists of being behind the shelling during the Jewish Passover holiday that left at least one person injured. “We know for sure that it was Palestinian fire,” said army spokesman Richard Hecht. “It could be Hamas, it could be Islamic Jihad, we’re trying to find out – but it wasn’t Hezbollah.”
On Friday evening, the Israeli army announced that it had shot down a drone that had entered its own airspace from Lebanon. She did not initially provide any further details.
