Violence in the Middle East: Netanyahu vows to defend Israel ‘on all fronts’

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is experiencing internal difficulties, promised on Monday evening to “restore security” in his country after another outbreak of violence in the Middle East and two new deaths in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The leader also announced that he has reconsidered his decision, made at the end of March, to fire Secretary of Defense Yoav Gallant, who was publicly touched by the controversy caused in the country by a justice reform project wanted by the government, and requested a pause in the process.

While violence between Israelis and Palestinians has steadily escalated since the start of the year, since Bibi’s inauguration at the end of December at the head of a government allied with the far right, the conflict has escalated in recent days.

“We will get to all the dastardly terrorists”

Deadly attacks, rocket attacks from Gaza, Lebanon and Syria, followed by Israeli reprisals: the region was swept by a wave of violence after a brutal incursion on April 5, at the height of Ramadan, by police in Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa district. Mosque, the third shrine of Islam.

“The government under my leadership will restore calm and security in our country,” the prime minister said under pressure. “We are working on all fronts,” he said.

“I promise you, we will contact all the dastardly terrorists who killed our citizens and they will be held accountable without exception,” the prime minister said after the shock in Israel over the death of three family members in a terrorist attack on Friday in the north of the country. occupied West Bank.

“We will not allow the Hamas terrorist to establish itself in Lebanon”

Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem announced on Monday afternoon the death of Lucy Dee, a 48-year-old British Israeli woman injured in the attack that killed her two daughters, aged 16 and 20. Previously, 15-year-old Palestinian teenager Mohamed Fayez Balhan was killed during an Israeli military incursion into the Palestinian refugee camp of Aqabat Jaber, near Jericho, with the aim, according to army authorities, “to arrest a suspect.”

The day after Israeli police intervened at the Al-Aqsa Mosque to “restore order” in the face of “extremists” barricaded with rocks and fireworks, about thirty rockets were fired from Lebanon into Israel, injuring one person and causing damage to property.

The Israeli army, which accuses the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas in power in the Gaza Strip of being the source of the shots, retaliated with strikes in Gaza and southern Lebanon. “We will not allow the terrorist Hamas to settle in Lebanon,” Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday evening. “We are still in the midst of hostilities, we are ready for other strong actions on all fronts if necessary,” he added, also threatening to make Syria pay a “very high price” in the event of another rocket attack from its territory.

Benjamin Netanyahu made these belligerent remarks when he looks very weak politically as several polls show that the opposition will win in today’s elections.

West Bank settlers mobilize

On Friday evening, the prime minister announced the mobilization of reserve police units and military reinforcements following a ram attack in Tel Aviv that killed an Italian tourist and two British Israeli sisters. On Monday, several thousand Israeli settlers marched to Eviatar, a Jewish settlement not recognized by Israeli authorities in the northern West Bank, demanding its legalization, AFP reporters said.

Almost three million Palestinians live in the West Bank. About 490,000 Jewish settlers also live there in settlements that the UN considers illegal under international law. Several ministers and MPs took part in the march on Eviatar, including far-right public security minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who said there that “the answer to terrorism is to build” more settlements.

Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of at least 94 Palestinians, 19 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian, according to AFP figures compiled from official Israeli and Palestinian sources. These figures include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, including minors, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, including minors, and three members of the Arab minority.