Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday ordered reserve border police officers to be called up immediately, a key move likely reflecting fears of further escalation following two deadly terrorist attacks in a single day and amid high nationwide tensions after a night of retaliatory airstrikes by Israel in Gaza and rare artillery fire on Lebanon.
Netanyahu announced the call-up as he huddled with security officials after Friday night’s autoram attack on the seafront Charles Clore Park in Tel Aviv, which killed an Italian tourist and wounded seven others, when a 45-year-old Arab An Israeli from Kafr Qassem drove his vehicle at high speed into a group of people walking on the promenade.
Earlier on Friday, two Israeli sisters, British nationals, were killed and their mother seriously injured in a terrorist attack in the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces launched a manhunt for the gunmen and other suspects who fled the scene.
Israel Police said in a statement that as of Sunday, four border police reserve units will be mobilized by order of the Defense Ministry and the National Security Ministry. They will join six reserve Border Police units already operating in and around Jerusalem and in the mixed Arab-Jewish city of Lod in central Israel, as authorities step up their police readiness ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which is usually a time of high tension have between Palestinians and Israeli security forces.
This year, Ramadan coincides with Passover and Easter. Passover began on Wednesday evening.
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Netanyahu said he was calling on all Israel Border Police reserve forces “to counter the terrorist attacks.”
The spike in violence came as tensions rose in recent days after Israeli police entered the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount to quell unrest; On Thursday, Hamas terrorists fired volleys of rockets from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon at Israel, authorities said. In response, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Hamas targets in Gaza and hit the group’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon, where it has a presence among Palestinian refugee camps.
Israeli police and emergency services stand around a car involved in an attack in Tel Aviv, Israel April 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Oren Ziv)
There were also several other attacks in the West Bank, with three soldiers injured in a car ramming on Saturday and two other soldiers injured in separate gunfire on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Thursday afternoon, 34 rockets were launched from southern Lebanon into northern Israel, 25 of which were intercepted by the Iron Dome air defense system. At least three people were injured and several buildings were damaged.
Firefighters try to put out a fire caused after a rocket fired from Lebanon struck near the Israeli town of Shlomi on April 6, 2023. (Fadi Amun/Flash90)
Violence has begun to spread to Arab communities in northern Israel and east Jerusalem, where police have made a series of arrests following clashes and unrest.
On Tuesday, police said they entered Al-Aqsa after masked youths barricaded themselves inside the mosque on the Temple Mount with firecrackers, clubs and stones and refused to come out peacefully. Officers apparently believed the group intended to attack Jews visiting the mountain on Passover night.
Israeli security forces remove Palestinian Muslim worshipers seated in the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem early April 5, 2023. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP)
The fighting of the past few days has raised fears of a major conflagration. Similar clashes erupted in a bloody 11-day war between Israel and Hamas two years ago, and saw widespread unrest and murderous violence in Israeli cities.
Police said the additional border police reserve units “will work to increase presence and strengthen security in city centers and congested areas”.
Earlier, military chief Herzi Halevi ordered the IDF to call up an unspecified number of reserve soldiers amid heightened tensions in the region.
Halevi, in a statement following the West Bank shooting attack, said the convocation would focus on air defense units and the “air strike formations,” that is, fighter jet pilots and attack drone operators, as well as other aircrew.
Halevi also ordered the IDF to bolster defenses at Central Command after Friday’s attack.
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