Chloé Lagadou, with AFP
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9:56 p.m., April 08, 2023
Israel is preparing to reinforce its troops on Saturday in the aftermath of two attacks that claimed the lives of three people, the latest episodes in a new cycle of violence in the Middle East. On Friday evening, an Italian tourist was killed on the Tel Aviv waterfront and seven other people, aged between 17 and 74, injured in a car bombing, some of whom were also Italians. Police said the 45-year-old driver who was shot was from the Arab town of Kfar Kassem in central Israel. Three people are still at Ichilov Hospital in Tel Aviv with minor injuries, the facility said on Saturday.
Three rockets fired from Syria into Israel
Three rockets were fired from Syria into Israel on Saturday night, the Israeli military reported, following similar fire from neighboring Lebanon in recent days and amid increased violence in the Middle East. One of the rockets “fell in a wasteland in the southern Golan Heights” annexed by Israel, the army said in a short statement, without giving further details. She had previously said warning sirens had sounded in that area.
At the scene of the attack, passers-by placed flowers on an Israeli flag and others lit candles, noted an AFP journalist. Italian President Sergio Mattarella condemned in a press release a “despicable terrorist act” while the anti-terrorist pole of the Rome public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.
Mobilization of all police units
“There is no justification for acts of terrorism, they must be condemned and rejected by all,” the UN envoy for the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, wrote on Twitter. Earlier Friday, two sisters from the Israeli settlement of Efrat, aged 16 and 20, were killed and their mother seriously injured in an attack in the West Bank. The two sisters, of Israeli and British nationalities, were victims of Palestinian fire on their vehicle in the northeast of this Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
I condemn yesterday’s terrorist attacks in the occupied West Bank and Tel Aviv. Heartfelt condolences to the victims’ families. There is no justification for acts of terrorism and they must be clearly condemned and rejected by all.
—Tor Wennesland (@TWennesland) April 8, 2023
Following the attack in Tel Aviv, which occurred on a Sabbath evening and during Passover week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “ordered the Israeli police to mobilize all reserve units of the border police, and [l’armée] to mobilize additional forces to deal with the terrorist attacks”. The police specified that four reserve battalions of the border police would be deployed as of Sunday in city centers, in addition to the units already mobilized in the mixed city of Lod and in the Jerusalem area.
A “natural and legitimate response”
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas said the attack in Tel Aviv was a “natural and legitimate response” to the Israeli “aggression” in the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem. The current outbreak of fever indeed follows violence on Wednesday on the esplanade of the Mosques, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism, also the epicenter of tensions in the Holy City. The Israeli forces brutally burst inside the Al-Aqsa mosque to dislodge the faithful, in the middle of Ramadan, arousing numerous condemnations.
Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were “forced to act to restore order” in the face of “extremists” barricaded in the mosque, while Hamas, which has waged several wars against Israel, denounced a “crime unprecedented”. After the violence, Israel carried out strikes targeting Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, in response to the firing of dozens of rockets on its territory. The Israeli army claimed that the unclaimed shots were “Palestinian”, and probably Hamas.
Make Israel’s ‘enemies’ pay a ‘high price’
On the Israeli-Lebanese front, this is an unprecedented escalation since 2006. Prime Minister Netanyahu has promised to make Israel’s “enemies” pay “a high price” for “every aggression” against his country. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite organization with a strong presence in southern Lebanon, said that “the whole axis of resistance is on high alert”, after supporting “all measures” that Palestinian groups could take against Israel.
Israel and Lebanon are technically in a state of war after different conflicts and the ceasefire line is controlled by the United Nations Interim Force (UNIFIL), deployed in southern Lebanon. According to UNIFIL, “both parties have said that they do not want war”. THE Qatar, which has in the past mediated between Israel and the ruling Hamas in Gaza, is “working towards de-escalation” to “prevent carnage”, a Qatari official told AFP on Friday, on condition of anonymity. .
Since the beginning of January, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of at least 91 Palestinians, 18 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian, according to an AFP tally 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.