Israel announced today that it will mobilize its reserve police and reinforce its military forces after the death of three people in two attacks that occurred yesterday in Tel Aviv and the West Bank and in the midst of a new escalation of tensions in the region.
An Italian tourist was killed yesterday after being hit by a car near the Tel Aviv waterfront, and seven other people were injured.
“My deep regret and condolences for the death of one of our compatriots, Alessandro Parini, in the terrorist attack that took place at night in Tel Aviv. Our condolences to the family of the victim, to the injured and our solidarity with the State of Israel for the cowardly attack,” Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni wrote on Twitter.
The driver, killed by the Police, was 45 years old and was from Kfar Kassem, an Arab town in central Israel.
There are still three people in the Ichilov hospital in the coastal city with minor injuries, the health center said today.
Hours earlier, there was another attack in the Jewish settlement of Efrat, in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967.
Two British-Israeli sisters aged 16 and 20 were killed and their mother seriously injured during a shooting attack on their vehicle.
After the attacks, which coincided with the Jewish Passover celebrations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered “to mobilize all reserve units of the Police at the borders and to mobilize additional forces (of the Army) to confront the terrorist attacks.”
The Police specified that four reserve battalions of its border corps would be deployed starting tomorrow in the center of the cities.
The battalions will add to units already mobilized in the city of Lod and in the Jerusalem region.
In the West Bank, the Israeli army declared today that it had been shot at night, near the Palestinian village of Yabad (north), reported the AFP news agency.
The soldiers “shot at the attackers” who were aboard a vehicle, and one person was identified as being shot, according to a military statement.
The Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas claimed that the Tel Aviv attack was a “natural and legitimate response” to the Israeli “aggression” on the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem last Wednesday, triggering the latest escalation of tension.
That day, the Israeli Police stormed the holy place to violently evict the Muslim faithful, actions that generated numerous international condemnations.
The intervention of the armed forces, in full celebrations of the Muslim month of Ramadan, ended with 350 detainees and 37 wounded, according to the Police and the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Al Aqsa is located on the Mosque Square, Islam’s third holy site, and is located in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian sector of the city occupied and annexed by Israel since 1967.
The complex is also built on top of the Temple Mount, considered the holiest place in Judaism.
On Thursday, about thirty rockets were fired at Israel from Lebanon, in the largest escalation since 2006 on the border between these two countries, which are technically still at war after several conflicts.
Israel responded by bombing Hamas infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, where it rules, and in southern Lebanon.
The European Union (EU) today condemned the escalation of violence and called for containment.
“We urge all parties to exercise maximum restraint, avoid further escalations and promote calm on the occasion of religious festivals,” the bloc’s head of diplomacy, Josep Borrell, said in a statement.
Since April 2022, no rockets have been launched from Lebanon towards Israel, which then also carried out attacks against its neighbor.
However, this is the most serious incident since the 2006 war against the Shiite Hezbollah movement, which is very present in southern Lebanon.
Source: Ambito
