IDF to bolster police in city centers and surround East Jerusalem neighborhoods, terrorists’ homes to be demolished and families’ residency revoked
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday that Israel would use “all means” available to curb ongoing Palestinian terrorism and violence, and promised “to bring quiet back to the citizens of Israel.”
Following the speech — given at a special Knesset session — the security cabinet passed slew of new security measures to be implemented in the coming days, according to Channel 2 news.
The IDF will bolster its presence in Israeli city centers, while Arab neighborhoods in East Jerusalem Arab will be surrounded by security forces.
In addition to increasing active security forces, the new measures also aim to deter would-be-terrorists from perpetrating attacks.
Terrorists’ homes will reportedly be demolished within days of carrying out attacks and the residency status will be revoked for families of East Jerusalem terrorists who aren’t Israeli citizens.
So far, the families of five Palestinian terrorists who have murdered Jews are to receive demolition orders. They include the families of the men who killed Eitam and Naama Henkin, in a West Bank shooting attack some two weeks ago; the man who fatally stabbed Nehemia Lavi and Aharon Benita in Jerusalem 10 days ago; and the killers of Malachi Rosenfeld and Danny Gonen in shooting attacks in the West Bank earlier this year.
Speaking hours after a series of terror attacks Tuesday that left three people dead and several more injured, Netanyahu said he believed the measures “will lead the other side to the realization that terror doesn’t pay.”
“Israel will settle its accounts with the murderers, with those who try murder and with those all those who assist them. Not only will we revoke rights from them; we will exact the full price,” he told the Knesset plenary.
Netanyahu also called on Mahmoud Abbas to stop “lying” about Israel’s actions and warned that he would hold him responsible if incitement led to a further deterioration.
He claimed the PA president is inciting by misrepresenting incidents in recent days, pointing to a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who stabbed Israelis in Jerusalem and was then filmed bleeding on the ground. Palestinians, he said, were circulating the video and claiming the boy was a martyr killed in cold blood while omitting the context — that he had first attacked and gravely wounded an Israeli boy his own age — and the fact that the boy lived and was treated by Israeli medics.
The Knesset session fell during an emergency security cabinet meeting called following Tuesday’s attacks. Netanyahu paused the meeting to deliver his Knesset speech, returning to the Prime Minister’s Office to resume discussions immediately after speaking.
Responding to Netanyahu, opposition leader Isaac Herzog told the plenary that the government should “stop stuttering and start acting.”
Herzog said he would support the government from the benches of the opposition if it imposes a closure on Palestinian neighborhoods and “locations of friction” in Jerusalem, and if it “widely deploys military and police forces and recruits reserve soldiers to the extent necessary.”
Herzog called for “an aggressive war militarily, legally and via intelligence against Islamic websites and web incitement and temporary closure of the Temple Mount to all visitors.”
Earlier Tuesday, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat also demanded a complete closure on the West Bank and East Jerusalem Arab neighborhoods, saying harsher measures were needed to battle a terror wave that has rocked the capital over the last month.
Former foreign minister Tzippi Livni of the Zionist Union said Israel must work with the Jordanian government to help ease tensions over the Temple Mount. She proposed setting up a joint inquiry with Jordan into recent events on the Mount.
“People will believe them even if they don’t trust us. It doesn’t matter how many times Netanyahu says we don’t want to change the status quo,” Livni said.
As reported by The Times of Israel