JERUSALEM, Jan 29 (Portal) – Israeli police sealed off the Jerusalem family home of a Palestinian gunman two days after he killed seven people outside a synagogue, amid fears of a further escalation of the deadliest unrest in Jerusalem in years and grew in the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday announced plans to make it easier for Israelis to carry guns after the synagogue attack, the deadliest attack on Jews in the Jerusalem area since 2008. It came a day after the deadliest Israeli military attack in years in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Since then, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy opened fire on a group of Israeli passers-by in Jerusalem on Saturday, wounding two before one of the civilians shot and wounded him. On Sunday, residents of a Palestinian village outside of Ramallah in the West Bank said a group from a nearby Israeli settlement burned down one house and smashed the doors and windows of another.
Netanyahu said making it easier for Israelis to get permits to carry weapons would reduce violence: “We have seen time and again… heroic, armed and trained civilians save lives.”
Further steps would be taken to strengthen settlements in the occupied West Bank and to disqualify relatives of Palestinians who carry out attacks. Israel is not seeking an escalation but will provide a “powerful, rapid and precise” response to Friday’s attack, he said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will make his first visit to Jerusalem and the West Bank this week since Netanyahu returned to power at the head of a coalition that includes Israel’s far right. Blinken’s visit now appears to be dominated by efforts to keep the violence from spiraling out of control.
A Palestinian died Sunday from wounds from Thursday’s raid in Jenin, bringing the death toll to 10, including at least two civilians from that raid. Most recently this month, 31 Palestinians have been killed in clashes with Israeli security forces in the West Bank.
The past year has been the deadliest for Palestinian civilians and militants in the West Bank in more than a decade, with violence steadily escalating after a spate of deadly Palestinian attacks in Israel.
CHALLENGE
Friday’s synagogue shooting poses a challenge to Netanyahu, who returned to power in December at the helm of the most right-wing government in Israeli history and vowed to make Israelis safer after Palestinian street attacks last year.
Netanyahu’s government, which was sworn in a month ago, has prioritized building settlements on the land Palestinians aspire to for a state, though it has yet to take any major steps on the ground. Most world powers consider Israel’s settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem illegal, land it captured in the 1967 war.
Awad Abu Samra, whose home in the village of Turmus Ayya was damaged on Sunday, said Israeli settlers are now attacking local farmers “almost every week or so.”
“They attack everything that belongs to the Palestinians.”
The Israeli military said Saturday it was sending additional troops to the West Bank. Still, there was no immediate sign that Israel was preparing for a full-scale military response to the shooting.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has not commented on Friday’s attack and on Saturday blamed Israel for the violence. The gunman appeared to have acted alone and was shot dead by officers as he tried to flee the scene, police said.
writing by Maayan Lubell; Edited by William Mallard and Peter Graff
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