Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a “strong” and “swift” response to the attacks in East Jerusalem ahead of the emergency security cabinet meeting.
The ministers also agreed that civilians should be able to obtain gun licenses more easily. “If civilians have weapons, they can defend themselves,” right-wing extremist Minister for Internal Security Itamar Ben Gvir said before the security cabinet’s deliberations.
Seven people were killed in a bloody attack in front of a synagogue on Friday evening. On Saturday morning, a 13-year-old Palestinian opened fire near the Old City, injuring two Israelis.
A 47-year-old man and his 23-year-old son were killed in the attack on Saturday morning in the Silwan neighborhood of East Jerusalem, according to the Israel Rescue Service. Both were injured. According to police, the shooter was a 13-year-old Palestinian from the Israeli-annexed eastern part of the city. The boy was overpowered by passers-by and injured.
The night before, after the start of the Jewish Sabbath, a Palestinian attacker opened fire in front of a synagogue in East Jerusalem, killing seven people and injuring at least three before the 21-year-old was killed by police after a chase.
According to the police, 42 people were arrested for questioning. The security forces were on the highest alert level. The army announced an increase in its troops in the West Bank. Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank celebrated the deadly attack.
Netanyahu announced on Saturday that the houses of the suspected masterminds would be demolished, and that families who “support terrorism” would be cut off welfare. He also wanted to propose to the security cabinet that civilians should be able to obtain gun licenses more easily. “If civilians have weapons, they can defend themselves,” said right-wing Minister of Internal Security Itamar Ben Gvir.
The Palestinian Authority blamed Israel for the renewed violence. Israel bears “full responsibility for the dangerous escalation,” the authority said.
The attack on Holocaust Remembrance Day sparked international outrage. Numerous states condemned the attack, including the USA, France, Great Britain, Turkey and the Arab states of Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) was “deeply shocked” by the “terrible attacks in Jerusalem” on Twitter. “Germany stands by Israel’s side,” he wrote. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier telephoned Israeli President Isaac Herzog, as the Office of the Federal President announced. “We are deeply shocked by the terrible terrorist attack on a synagogue in Jerusalem that killed seven people,” said Steinmeier, condemning “the brutal terrorist violence in the strongest possible terms.”
French President Emmanuel Macron warned the parties to the conflict “to avoid a spiral of violence at all costs”. The EU condemned the attacks in Jerusalem as “acts of insane violence and hatred”, but at the same time appealed to Israel to use deadly force only as a “last resort”.
Russia also called on the parties to the conflict to show “the greatest possible restraint”. “A further escalation of tensions” must be prevented, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.
US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken wants to try to de-escalate the situation in Jerusalem and Ramallah on Monday and Tuesday.
A day before the attack in front of the synagogue, nine Palestinians were killed in a raid by the Israeli army in the Palestinian refugee camp Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank. According to the UN, it was the highest number of casualties in a single Israeli operation in the West Bank since the end of the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising from 2000 to 2005.
In retaliation, rockets were fired at Israel from the Gaza Strip on Friday. The Israeli army intercepted most of the missiles with its air defense system.
