Israel seals off gunman’s home
Rights of ‘terrorist families’ revoked
Israeli officers yesterday sealed off the Jerusalem family home of a Palestinian gunman who killed seven people outside a synagogue on the outskirts of the city, police said, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised “a swift response”.
Seven people including a 14-yearold were shot dead on Friday in the attack on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which drew wide international condemnation and heightened fears of already spiralling violence escalating further.
It was the worst such Palestinian attack on Israelis in the Jerusalem area since 2008 and followed a fatal Israeli raid in the occupied West Bank city Jenin on Thursday, the deadliest there in years.
Yesterday, the Israeli security cabinet announced measures to revoke certain rights of “terrorist families” after the two attacks in east Jerusalem.
It also said there was a discussion yesterday by the council of ministers over a bill to revoke their Israeli identity cards.
The measures announced are in line with proposals from Mr Netanyahu’s far-right political partners which enabled him to return to power at the end of December, following elections the previous month.
They are likely to apply primarily to Palestinians with Israeli nationality (Israeli Arabs) and Palestinians with resident status in annexed east Jerusalem.
On Friday evening, a 21-year-old Palestinian fired on passers-by near a synagogue in the settlement neighbourhood of Neve Yaacov, killing seven people before being shot.
The bloodshed continued on Saturday, when a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot and wounded a 47-year-old Israeli father and his army officer son, 23, in Silwan, just outside the walled Old City of east Jerusalem.
The boy blamed for the attack was shot and wounded at the scene.
No one has claimed responsibility for either of the attacks.
The security cabinet also decided to make it easier to obtain permits to carry firearms.
“When civilians have guns, they can defend themselves,” extreme-right National Security Minister Itamar BenGvir told reporters outside a Jerusalem hospital on Saturday.
Israeli forces have been placed on high alert, and the army has announced that it will be reinforcing troop numbers in the West Bank, while calls for restraint have multiplied from abroad.
The attacks came after one of the deadliest Israeli army raids in the occupied West Bank in two decades, rocket fire from militants in the Gaza Strip and retaliatory Israeli air strikes.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected in Jerusalem and Ramallah today and tomorrow to discuss steps for de-escalation.
Friday’s attack near a synagogue, which coincided with International Holocaust Remembrance Day, sparked outrage in Europe and the United States and condemnation from several Arab governments that have ties with Israel — including Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.
Israeli and Palestinian media have named the gunman as Khayri Alqam, who was being praised on some Arabic-language social media platforms.
Calling the attack “particularly abhorrent,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply worried about the current escalation of violence”.
But the Palestinian Authority led by president Mahmud Abbas refrained from condemnation, with his office insisting Israel was “fully responsible for the dangerous escalation”.
The fresh violence came after nine Palestinians were killed on Thursday in what Israel described as a “counterterrorism” operation in the Jenin refugee camp.
It was one of the deadliest Israeli army raids in the West Bank since the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising of 2000 to 2005.
Israel said Islamic Jihad operatives were the target.
Islamic Jihad and Hamas both later fired several rockets at Israeli territory.
Most of the rockets were intercepted by Israeli air defences. The military responded with strikes on Hamas targets in Gaza.