Israel is mobilizing after attacks in Tel Aviv and the occupied West Bank
Israel announced Friday evening that it was mobilizing reserve police and military reinforcements after two attacks killed three people.
An Israeli policeman at the scene of an attack in Tel Aviv on April 7, 2023.
AFP
Around 9:35pm (8:35pm in Switzerland), a driver sped into passers-by on a bike lane on Kaufmann Avenue on the Tel Aviv waterfront. – old man, according to the police. In Rome, head of government Giorgia Meloni identified him as Italian national, Alessandro Parini, and offered condolences to his family.
Seven people, aged 17 to 74, were injured in the attack, said Megan David Adom of the Israeli Red Cross. Four tourists were among those treated at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv: three Britons and one Italian. The police said that a nearby police officer and municipal officials shot the driver when they realized that he was trying to grab a weapon. He is 45 years old from the Arab town of Kfar Kassem in central Israel.
Following the attack on a Shabbat evening and during Passover week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “ordered the Israel Police to mobilize all Reserve Border Police units. [l’armée] “Additional forces should be mobilized to deal with terrorist attacks,” his office said.
Earlier, two sisters from the Israeli settlement of Efrat, aged 16 and 20, were killed and their mother critically injured in an attack in the West Bank. Two sisters of Israeli and British nationality were killed when Palestinians fired on their vehicle in the northeast of the Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
‘Unprecedented Crime’
Before dawn, Israel launched military strikes against positions of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza and southern Lebanon, in retaliation for dozens of rockets fired into its territory earlier in the day. The new outbreak follows Israeli forces and an outbreak of violence at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam’s third holiest site, on Wednesday, prompting a wave of international condemnation, while Gaza’s ruling Hamas condemned the attack. Israel’s “unprecedented crime” in the middle of Ramadan. Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were “forced to act to restore order” in the face of “extremists” besieging the mosque.
Another Palestinian armed group, Islamic Jihad, described the attack in Tel Aviv as “a natural and justified response to the crimes and attacks of the occupation (Israel, editor’s note) against our people and our holy places.”
In Lebanon, the Israeli military said it struck three Hamas “infrastructures” in the Rachidiyé area, home to a Palestinian refugee camp near Tire in the south of the country. About 30 rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel on Thursday, an unprecedented incident along the Israel-Lebanon front since 2006, injuring one person and causing property damage. The Israeli military attributed the unclaimed attacks to “Palestinians” and mostly Hamas.
Qatar Mediation
Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to make Israel’s “enemies” pay a “high price” for “every aggression”. “Threats and intimidation by the Zionist leaders will lead nowhere,” Nayam Qasim, the number two of the Shiite Hezbollah movement, South Lebanon’s practical master, responded on Friday.
On Friday, the Israeli military said it had shot down a drone that entered its territory from Lebanon, without further details.
Israel and Lebanon are technically at war after different conflicts and the cease-fire line is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL) stationed in southern Lebanon. According to UNIFIL, “Both parties have said they do not want war”. The Lebanese army announced on Friday that it had dismantled a new launch pad for rockets fired at Israel in the south, and Beirut vowed it wanted to preserve “peace” there.
The Israeli military said it carried out several airstrikes targeting ten targets of Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007. The local health ministry declared Al-Dora Children’s Hospital in the east of Gaza City “damaged”.
Qatar, which has mediated between Israel and Hamas in the past, is “working towards escalation to prevent unnecessary carnage and avoid devastating consequences for Palestinians and civilians,” a Qatari official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
AFP
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