Israel launches a battery of measures to punish “family members of terrorists” and escalates tension

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Israeli security forces on Sunday sealed off the family home of the Palestinian who killed seven people on Friday outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem, in one of the first retaliatory measures against “terrorist relatives”.

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Israel’s security cabinet announced on Saturday night that it would attack “relatives of terrorists who support terrorism.”

Among the measures mentioned is the possibility of depriving them of social security or taking away their Israeli identity documents. The latter will be examined by the Council of Ministers.

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It was also indicated that the home of the family of Khayri Alqam, the perpetrator of Friday’s attack on Neve Yaakov, “would be cordoned off immediately before being destroyed”.

Israeli forces Hermetically sealed the various entrances to the residencewhile its inhabitants were forced to abandon it, as reported by neighbors and journalists present on site.

The demolition of the homes of relatives of Palestinians who have killed Israelis is not a new measure in Israel, whose authorities defend it for its deterrent effects, even as its detractors see it as unnecessary collective punishment.

The head of the legal office of the Israeli NGO HaMoked, Dani Shenhar, said that the announced demolition of that house shows the government’s “will for revenge” “against relatives”.

It is a measure taken “without any respect for the rule of law,” he added.

wave of attacks

Khayri Alqam, 21, shot dead seven people outside a synagogue in east Jerusalem on Friday, before being killed after a brief police chase.

Another Palestinian youth, just 13, shot and wounded a 47-year-old man and his 23-year-old son on Saturday, before being “wounded and neutralized” in a neighborhood outside the wall that borders the Old City, in Jerusalem. police said.

No organization has claimed responsibility for these two attacks.

Three of the victims of Friday’s shooting were buried on Saturday night, according to an AFP reporter.

They were Asher Natan, a 14-year-old teenager, and Eli and Natalie Mizrahi, a couple who tried to help the first victims of the attack.

This spiral of violence began Thursday with an Israeli incursion into the occupied Palestinian enclave of the West Bank, in which nine Palestinians diedincluding an elderly woman.

A Palestinian house and car were set on fire in the West Bank village of Turmus Ayya, an attack attributed by residents to Israeli settlers but not confirmed by the Israeli military.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government has placed security forces on high alert and the army has announced reinforcements in the West Bank.

Israeli security agents killed a Palestinian near a Jewish settlement in the West Bank on Sunday morning, the Palestinian health ministry said.

According to the Israeli army, the man was “armed”.

weapons for civilians

The Jewish state’s security cabinet proposed on Saturday evening to facilitate the transportation of civilians.

“When civilians carry weapons, they can defend themselves,” Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir told reporters.

“Our response will be vigorous, swift and precise,” said Prime Minister Netanyahu, who returned to power in December with a new government that includes ministers from far-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

The Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, has held that Israel is “fully responsible for the dangerous escalation”.

From Washington to Moscow, via Paris, the appeals of international leaders have multiplied, asking to avoid “a spiral of violence”. Mashed potato Pope Francis has condemned the escalation of violence in the Middle East and called on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to undertake a “sincere pursuit of peace”.

The head of US diplomacy, Antony Blinken, arrived in Egypt on Sunday to begin a short tour of the Middle East, which will include a stop in Jerusalem and another in Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority.

Israeli MP Mickey Levy, of the centrist Yesh Atid party (opposition), warned that the new wave of violence is reminiscent of the second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising from 2000 to 2005, which saw bloody clashes.

Source: AFP

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Source: Clarin

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