#FREEPALESTINE
The two earlier attacks were carried out by Palestinian citizens of Israel; in all three incidents the attackers were killed by police or passersby.
The violence has stunned Israelis, who had enjoyed relative quiet since last year’s 11-day war with Hamas. It has also overshadowed a historic gathering in the Negev Desert this week that for the first time saw the foreign ministers of four Arab countries meet their Israeli and American counterparts on Israeli soil. And though the foreign ministers — from Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Morocco — paid lip service to the Palestinian issue, the meeting centered on the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. The Palestinians were not invited.
In response to the violence, Israel has increased its security presence in Israeli cities and the occupied West Bank. It has made arrests in Arab communities and raided the West Bank home of the man who carried out Tuesday’s attack.
“We are dealing with a new wave of terror,” said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “As in other waves, we will prevail.”
But there are no signs that Bennett is prepared to address the deeper issues fueling the conflict.
Bennett heads an unwieldy coalition of ideologically diverse parties — including an Islamist Arab faction — that united with the goal of toppling former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To survive, the coalition agreed to set aside divisive issues, most notably the conflict with the Palestinians, and instead focus on matters in the Israeli consensus, such as the pandemic and the economy.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, has repeatedly called the new government “a beautiful thing.” Focused on the war in Ukraine and tensions with China, Washington has indicated it has no plans to float a peace plan and instead wants to lay the foundation for future talks one day.
With his tack, Bennett and his government did not diverge from Netanyahu, who begrudgingly accepted the concept of Palestinian statehood under fierce American pressure but did little to advance the idea.
The Palestinians, in turn, have drawn disappointing parallels with the war in Ukraine, lamenting that the West has rallied swiftly against Russia’s aggression and has yet to move to sanction Israel for its 55-year occupation.
Meanwhile, Israel has deepened its control over the West Bank with its web of checkpoints and barriers, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in Jewish settlements. The Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza persists. The last substantive peace talks took place a decade and a half ago. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future state.
The Bennett government appears to have learned some lessons from last year, when a series of missteps before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan boiled over into the Gaza war.
This year, as major Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays converge, Israel has offered to ease a series of restrictions on Palestinians ahead of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.
Israel has issued thousands of work permits for Gaza laborers, lifted a ban on family visits to Palestinian prisoners from Gaza and said it will not restrict Palestinian gatherings around Jerusalem’s Old City like last year.
A rare visit by Jordan’s king to Palestinian leaders in the West Bank this week, followed by visits to the king by Israel’s defense minister and president on Wednesday, was aimed at cementing the calm.
The uptick in violence could derail the new measures.
King Abdullah II told Isaac Herzog, the visiting Israeli president, that he condemned the bloodshed, but that any regional progress “must include our Palestinian brothers.”
Many Palestinians say the true aim of Israel’s measures is to maintain the status quo, in which millions live under a decades-long military occupation with no end in sight.
“They’re doling out little privileges through an eyedropper,” said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian leadership. “The Israelis have long taken the position that Palestinians don’t deserve rights, that we don’t want rights, that it’s just a question of us being able to be bought off, to get little permits here and there.”
Any solution to the Palestinian conflict is complicated by a yearslong rift between Abbas’ Fatah movement and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and calls for Israel’s destruction. And with two of the last three attacks having been carried out by Israeli citizens, Israel may now be forced to reckon with a minority population riddled by violent crime and long suffering from discrimination.
In Israel, some argue that even Palestinian statehood wouldn’t end the conflict.
The Palestinians “will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. The struggle for them is for all of Israel,” Yitzhak Gershon, a retired military major general, told Israeli Army Radio.
Meanwhile, several rights groups have branded Israeli rule between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as an apartheid system.
Omar Shakir of the international group Human Rights Watch stressed that no grievance justifies the killing of innocent people. He added: “The reality is that it is unsustainable to continue ruling over millions of people deprived of their fundamental rights.”
___
Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
By TIA GOLDENBERG
1 of 15
1 of 15
A member of Israeli Zaka Rescue and Recovery team cleans blood from the site where a gunman opened fire in Bnei Brak, Israel, Tuesday, March 29, 2022. A gunman on a motorcycle opened fire in central Israel late Tuesday, in the second fatal mass shooting rampage this week. The shooter was killed by police. (AP PhotoOded Balilty)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Three deadly attacks in Israel in a week are raising questions over Israel’s approach to its conflict with the Palestinians, after years of efforts to sideline the issue and focus instead on other regional priorities.
The attacks by Palestinian assailants, including most recently on Tuesday night, have killed 11 people in the deadliest spate Israel has seen in years. They come as peace talks on ending Israel’s rule over Palestinians and setting up a Palestinian state on occupied lands are a distant memory. In the meantime, Israel has shifted its priorities to containing archenemy Iran and building regional Arab alliances.
Israel’s government, with support from the Biden administration, has tried to do what leaders describe as “shrinking” the conflict. Instead of seeking a partition deal with the Palestinians, it aims to keep things quiet by taking steps to improve the Palestinian economy and reduce frictions.
But now, as Israel faces the possibility of another cycle of violence less than a year after a war with Hamas militants in Gaza, the Palestinian issue is once again clawing its way back to the fore and exposing the weaknesses of this approach.
It was a message that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tried to deliver as he condemned Tuesday night’s shooting in the central city of Bnei Brak.
“Permanent, comprehensive and just peace is the shortest way to provide security and stability for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the region,” he said. Israel has long sidelined Abbas, branding him an unacceptable partner for peace talks.
Israel sees the current wave as another round of extremist violence aimed against its very existence. It blames incitement on Palestinian social media, says that Hamas encourages the violence and points to a flood of weapons available in Palestinian communities.
In Tuesday’s attack, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank methodically gunned down victims, killing five. On Sunday night, a shooting attack by two Islamic State sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. Last week, a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba — also by an attacker inspired by IS — killed four.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Three deadly attacks in Israel in a week are raising questions over Israel’s approach to its conflict with the Palestinians, after years of efforts to sideline the issue and focus instead on other regional priorities.
The attacks by Palestinian assailants, including most recently on Tuesday night, have killed 11 people in the deadliest spate Israel has seen in years. They come as peace talks on ending Israel’s rule over Palestinians and setting up a Palestinian state on occupied lands are a distant memory. In the meantime, Israel has shifted its priorities to containing archenemy Iran and building regional Arab alliances.
Israel’s government, with support from the Biden administration, has tried to do what leaders describe as “shrinking” the conflict. Instead of seeking a partition deal with the Palestinians, it aims to keep things quiet by taking steps to improve the Palestinian economy and reduce frictions.
But now, as Israel faces the possibility of another cycle of violence less than a year after a war with Hamas militants in Gaza, the Palestinian issue is once again clawing its way back to the fore and exposing the weaknesses of this approach.
It was a message that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas tried to deliver as he condemned Tuesday night’s shooting in the central city of Bnei Brak.
“Permanent, comprehensive and just peace is the shortest way to provide security and stability for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples and the peoples of the region,” he said. Israel has long sidelined Abbas, branding him an unacceptable partner for peace talks.
Israel sees the current wave as another round of extremist violence aimed against its very existence. It blames incitement on Palestinian social media, says that Hamas encourages the violence and points to a flood of weapons available in Palestinian communities.
In Tuesday’s attack, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank methodically gunned down victims, killing five. On Sunday night, a shooting attack by two Islamic State sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. Last week, a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba — also by an attacker inspired by IS — killed four.
The two earlier attacks were carried out by Palestinian citizens of Israel; in all three incidents the attackers were killed by police or passersby.
The violence has stunned Israelis, who had enjoyed relative quiet since last year’s 11-day war with Hamas. It has also overshadowed a historic gathering in the Negev Desert this week that for the first time saw the foreign ministers of four Arab countries meet their Israeli and American counterparts on Israeli soil. And though the foreign ministers — from Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Morocco — paid lip service to the Palestinian issue, the meeting centered on the emerging nuclear deal between Iran and world powers. The Palestinians were not invited.
In response to the violence, Israel has increased its security presence in Israeli cities and the occupied West Bank. It has made arrests in Arab communities and raided the West Bank home of the man who carried out Tuesday’s attack.
“We are dealing with a new wave of terror,” said Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. “As in other waves, we will prevail.”
But there are no signs that Bennett is prepared to address the deeper issues fueling the conflict.
Bennett heads an unwieldy coalition of ideologically diverse parties — including an Islamist Arab faction — that united with the goal of toppling former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. To survive, the coalition agreed to set aside divisive issues, most notably the conflict with the Palestinians, and instead focus on matters in the Israeli consensus, such as the pandemic and the economy.
The U.S. ambassador to Israel, Tom Nides, has repeatedly called the new government “a beautiful thing.” Focused on the war in Ukraine and tensions with China, Washington has indicated it has no plans to float a peace plan and instead wants to lay the foundation for future talks one day.
With his tack, Bennett and his government did not diverge from Netanyahu, who begrudgingly accepted the concept of Palestinian statehood under fierce American pressure but did little to advance the idea.
The Palestinians, in turn, have drawn disappointing parallels with the war in Ukraine, lamenting that the West has rallied swiftly against Russia’s aggression and has yet to move to sanction Israel for its 55-year occupation.
Meanwhile, Israel has deepened its control over the West Bank with its web of checkpoints and barriers, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis living in Jewish settlements. The Israeli-Egyptian blockade on Gaza persists. The last substantive peace talks took place a decade and a half ago. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and east Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, for a future state.
The Bennett government appears to have learned some lessons from last year, when a series of missteps before the Muslim holy month of Ramadan boiled over into the Gaza war.
This year, as major Muslim, Jewish and Christian holidays converge, Israel has offered to ease a series of restrictions on Palestinians ahead of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.
Israel has issued thousands of work permits for Gaza laborers, lifted a ban on family visits to Palestinian prisoners from Gaza and said it will not restrict Palestinian gatherings around Jerusalem’s Old City like last year.
A rare visit by Jordan’s king to Palestinian leaders in the West Bank this week, followed by visits to the king by Israel’s defense minister and president on Wednesday, was aimed at cementing the calm.
The uptick in violence could derail the new measures.
King Abdullah II told Isaac Herzog, the visiting Israeli president, that he condemned the bloodshed, but that any regional progress “must include our Palestinian brothers.”
Many Palestinians say the true aim of Israel’s measures is to maintain the status quo, in which millions live under a decades-long military occupation with no end in sight.
“They’re doling out little privileges through an eyedropper,” said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser to the Palestinian leadership. “The Israelis have long taken the position that Palestinians don’t deserve rights, that we don’t want rights, that it’s just a question of us being able to be bought off, to get little permits here and there.”
Any solution to the Palestinian conflict is complicated by a yearslong rift between Abbas’ Fatah movement and Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip and calls for Israel’s destruction. And with two of the last three attacks having been carried out by Israeli citizens, Israel may now be forced to reckon with a minority population riddled by violent crime and long suffering from discrimination.
In Israel, some argue that even Palestinian statehood wouldn’t end the conflict.
The Palestinians “will never accept Israel as a Jewish state. The struggle for them is for all of Israel,” Yitzhak Gershon, a retired military major general, told Israeli Army Radio.
Meanwhile, several rights groups have branded Israeli rule between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as an apartheid system.
Omar Shakir of the international group Human Rights Watch stressed that no grievance justifies the killing of innocent people. He added: “The reality is that it is unsustainable to continue ruling over millions of people deprived of their fundamental rights.”
___
Associated Press writer Joseph Krauss in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
Several killed in West Bank clashes after Arab attacks in Israel
Thu, 31 March 2022,
Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, in clashes that erupted during a raid in the occupied West Bank that followed deadly Arab attacks in Israel.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a passenger on an Israeli bus near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and was shot dead by another passenger, the Israeli military said.
The national ambulance service said the man who was stabbed had suffered moderate wounds.
Earlier, the Israeli military said its forces and border police entered the refugee camp in the city of Jenin to "apprehend terrorist suspects".
"During the operation, terrorists opened fire at our forces. Israeli troops returned fire that struck the gunmen. An Israeli soldier was slightly wounded," the military said in a statement.
The Palestinian health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 17 and 23, were killed in the clashes.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that "continued raids and daily killings of our people and the daily crimes by settlers will lead the region towards more tension and escalation".
On Tuesday, a Palestinian gunman from the Jenin area shot dead five people in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak before he was killed by police. The shooting, condemned on Tuesday by Abbas, raised to 11 the number of people killed by Arab attackers in Israel over the past week to 11.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke late on Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden. The U.S. Embassy said Biden had expressed "his deepest condolences following the horrific terrorist attacks".
Bennett has announced a series of measures to deal with what he has described as a new wave of attacks, saying more police would be put on city streets and security would be tightened in areas bordering the West Bank.
(REUTERS)
Israeli forces kill 2 in West Bank clash, Palestinian stabs bus passenger
Violence comes 2 days after shooting in central Israel left 5 people dead
The Associated Press · Posted: Mar 31, 2022
Four killed in southern Israel shopping centre attack
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday. Biden expressed his condolences after the recent attacks and said the U.S., "stands firmly and resolutely with Israel in the face of this terrorist threat and all threats to the state of Israel," the White House said.
No serious peace talks in more than a decade
The recent wave of violence has come at a time when Israel is focused on building alliances with Arab states against Iran. There have been no serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in more than a decade, and Bennett is opposed to Palestinian statehood.
Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders have held a flurry of meetings in recent weeks, and Israel has announced a series of goodwill gestures, in an effort to maintain calm ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.
They hope to avoid a repeat of last year, when clashes in Jerusalem set off an 11-day Gaza war, but the recent attacks have sent tensions soaring. After a Security Cabinet meeting late Wednesday, Israel nevertheless decided to carry on with plans to ease restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
Thu, 31 March 2022,
Israeli security forces are shown at the scene of a stabbing attack in a bus near the Elazar settlement in the occupied West Bank on Thursday. A Palestinian stabbed and wounded an Israeli civilian on the bus before being shot dead by a another passenger, the Israeli army said. (Oren Ben Hakoon/AFP/Getty Images)
Israeli forces killed at least two Palestinians on Thursday, the Palestinian health ministry said, in clashes that erupted during a raid in the occupied West Bank that followed deadly Arab attacks in Israel.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a passenger on an Israeli bus near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and was shot dead by another passenger, the Israeli military said.
The national ambulance service said the man who was stabbed had suffered moderate wounds.
Earlier, the Israeli military said its forces and border police entered the refugee camp in the city of Jenin to "apprehend terrorist suspects".
"During the operation, terrorists opened fire at our forces. Israeli troops returned fire that struck the gunmen. An Israeli soldier was slightly wounded," the military said in a statement.
The Palestinian health ministry said two Palestinians, aged 17 and 23, were killed in the clashes.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said in a statement that "continued raids and daily killings of our people and the daily crimes by settlers will lead the region towards more tension and escalation".
On Tuesday, a Palestinian gunman from the Jenin area shot dead five people in the Tel Aviv suburb of Bnei Brak before he was killed by police. The shooting, condemned on Tuesday by Abbas, raised to 11 the number of people killed by Arab attackers in Israel over the past week to 11.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett spoke late on Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden. The U.S. Embassy said Biden had expressed "his deepest condolences following the horrific terrorist attacks".
Bennett has announced a series of measures to deal with what he has described as a new wave of attacks, saying more police would be put on city streets and security would be tightened in areas bordering the West Bank.
(REUTERS)
Israeli forces kill 2 in West Bank clash, Palestinian stabs bus passenger
Violence comes 2 days after shooting in central Israel left 5 people dead
The Associated Press · Posted: Mar 31, 2022
Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank early Thursday, setting off a gun battle in which two Palestinians were killed and 15 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a 28-year-old Israeli man on a bus in the West Bank before being killed by a bystander, the Israeli military said. The Magen David Adom emergency service said the stabbing victim was treated and taken to a hospital.
Videos circulated online showed smoke rising from the centre of the Jenin refugee camp as gunfire echoed in the background. Others appeared to show Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen moving through the narrow streets.
Spike in violence
The raid came two days after a Palestinian from a village near Jenin shot and killed five people in central Israel, part of a wave of attacks in recent days that have left a total of 11 people dead.
5 killed in 3rd deadly attack in Israel in a week
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 17-year-old Sanad Abu Atiyeh and 23-year-old Yazid al-Saadi were killed in the refugee camp. It said 30-year-old Nidal Jaafara was shot and killed near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, apparently referring to the stabbing incident.
The Israeli military said troops came under fire after entering Jenin to arrest suspects. It said one soldier was wounded and evacuated to a hospital for treatment.
The Jenin refugee camp was the scene of one of the deadliest battles of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. In April 2002, Israeli forces fought Palestinian militants in the camp for nearly three weeks. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers and at least 52 Palestinians, including civilians, were killed, according to the United Nations.
In a separate incident, a Palestinian stabbed a 28-year-old Israeli man on a bus in the West Bank before being killed by a bystander, the Israeli military said. The Magen David Adom emergency service said the stabbing victim was treated and taken to a hospital.
Videos circulated online showed smoke rising from the centre of the Jenin refugee camp as gunfire echoed in the background. Others appeared to show Israeli soldiers and Palestinian gunmen moving through the narrow streets.
Spike in violence
The raid came two days after a Palestinian from a village near Jenin shot and killed five people in central Israel, part of a wave of attacks in recent days that have left a total of 11 people dead.
5 killed in 3rd deadly attack in Israel in a week
The Palestinian Health Ministry said 17-year-old Sanad Abu Atiyeh and 23-year-old Yazid al-Saadi were killed in the refugee camp. It said 30-year-old Nidal Jaafara was shot and killed near the West Bank town of Bethlehem, apparently referring to the stabbing incident.
The Israeli military said troops came under fire after entering Jenin to arrest suspects. It said one soldier was wounded and evacuated to a hospital for treatment.
The Jenin refugee camp was the scene of one of the deadliest battles of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. In April 2002, Israeli forces fought Palestinian militants in the camp for nearly three weeks. Twenty-three Israeli soldiers and at least 52 Palestinians, including civilians, were killed, according to the United Nations.
Palestinian Hadeel Abu Atiyeh, centre, cries during the funeral of her brother Sanad Abu Atiyeh, 17, in the West Bank refugee camp of Jenin on Thursday. Israeli forces raided a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank earlier in the day, setting off a gun battle in which two Palestinians were killed and 15 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. (Nasser Nasser/The Associated Press)
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and co-ordinates with Israel on security matters, appears to have had little control over Jenin in recent years. Israeli forces operating in and around the city and refugee camp often come under fire.
The Islamic Jihad militant group announced a "general mobilization" of its fighters after Thursday's raid.
In Tuesday's attack, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank village of Yabad, near Jenin, methodically gunned down victims, killing five. On Sunday night, a shooting attack by two Islamic State sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. Last week, a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba — also by an attacker inspired by ISIS — killed four. The two attacks claimed by ISIS were carried out by Arab citizens of Israel.
ISIS claims responsibility after gunmen kill 2 police officers in Israel
The Palestinian Authority, which administers parts of the occupied West Bank and co-ordinates with Israel on security matters, appears to have had little control over Jenin in recent years. Israeli forces operating in and around the city and refugee camp often come under fire.
The Islamic Jihad militant group announced a "general mobilization" of its fighters after Thursday's raid.
In Tuesday's attack, a 27-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank village of Yabad, near Jenin, methodically gunned down victims, killing five. On Sunday night, a shooting attack by two Islamic State sympathizers in the central city of Hadera killed two police officers. Last week, a combined car-ramming and stabbing attack in the southern city of Beersheba — also by an attacker inspired by ISIS — killed four. The two attacks claimed by ISIS were carried out by Arab citizens of Israel.
ISIS claims responsibility after gunmen kill 2 police officers in Israel
Four killed in southern Israel shopping centre attack
U.S. President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett on Wednesday. Biden expressed his condolences after the recent attacks and said the U.S., "stands firmly and resolutely with Israel in the face of this terrorist threat and all threats to the state of Israel," the White House said.
No serious peace talks in more than a decade
The recent wave of violence has come at a time when Israel is focused on building alliances with Arab states against Iran. There have been no serious Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in more than a decade, and Bennett is opposed to Palestinian statehood.
Israeli, Jordanian and Palestinian leaders have held a flurry of meetings in recent weeks, and Israel has announced a series of goodwill gestures, in an effort to maintain calm ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins this weekend.
They hope to avoid a repeat of last year, when clashes in Jerusalem set off an 11-day Gaza war, but the recent attacks have sent tensions soaring. After a Security Cabinet meeting late Wednesday, Israel nevertheless decided to carry on with plans to ease restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
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