Israel hardens reprisals after fatal shootings

JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced late Saturday a series of punitive steps against the Palestinians in response to a pair of shootings in Jerusalem that killed seven Israelis and badly wounded five others.

The steps include new moves to “strengthen” Jewish settlements, his office said. The decision came ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The Biden administration opposes Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem — territories claimed by the Palestinians for a future state.

Netanyahu’s Security Cabinet approved the measures in the wake of a pair of shootings — including an attack outside an east Jerusalem synagogue on Friday night in which seven people were killed.

Netanyahu’s office said the Security Cabinet agreed to seal off the attacker’s home in preparation ahead of its demolition.

It also plans to cancel social security and health benefits for the families of attackers, make it easier for Israelis to obtain weapons and step up efforts to collect illegal weapons.

Earlier Saturday, a 13-yearold Palestinian boy opened fire in east Jerusalem, wounding two Israelis, just a day after the attack that killed seven. The latest shooting in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan in east Jerusalem, near the historic Old City, wounded a father and son, ages 47 and 23, paramedics said. Both were fully conscious and in moderate to serious condition in the hospital, the medics added.

As police rushed to the scene, two passers-by with licensed weapons shot and overpowered the 13-year-old attacker, police said. Police confiscated his handgun and took the wounded teen to a hospital.

Video showed police escorting the boy, wearing nothing but underwear, away from the scene and onto a stretcher, his hands cuffed behind his back. Authorities taped off the street, emergency vehicles and security forces swarmed the area and helicopters whirled overhead.

“He waited to ambush civilians on the holy Sabbath day,” Israeli police spokesman Dean Elsdunne told the Associated Press, adding that the teenager opened fire on a group of five civilians. Security footage showed the victims to be observant Jews, wearing skullcaps and tzitzit, or knotted ritual tassels.

Saturday’s events raised the possibility of even greater conflagration in one of the bloodiest months in Israel and the occupied West Bank in several years.

The recent attacks pose a pivotal test for Israel’s new farright government. Its firebrand minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has presented himself as an enforcer of law and order and grabbed headlines for his promises to take even stronger action against the Palestinians.

The Israeli army said it had deployed another battalion to the West Bank on Saturday, adding hundreds more troops to a presence already on heightened alert in the occupied territory.

The Friday attack came a day after an Israeli military raid killed nine Palestinians in the flashpoint Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank that prompted a rocket barrage from Gaza and retaliatory Israeli air strikes.

Mahmoud Illean/Associated Press Israeli police officers secure the site of a shooting attack in east Jerusalem that injured two Israelis. The 13-year-old attacker was taken into custody after being shot and wounded.