Israel yesterday imposed a series of sweeping restrictions on Palestinian movement and deployed hundreds of additional troops to the West Bank in response to a Tel Aviv attack that killed four Israelis.
The shooting, carried out by two West Bank Palestinians, targeted a crowded tourist and restaurant district in the heart of Tel Aviv, and was among the deadliest and most brazen attacks in a nine-month wave of violence. The area is across the street from the Israeli military’s headquarters.
As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prepared to meet with his Security Cabinet to discuss further responses, the Israeli military announced that it was deploying two additional battalions to the West Bank “in accordance with situation assessments.”
Photo: Reuters
Among the participants in the Security Cabinet meeting was new Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of an ultranationalist party known for his hard-line views toward the Palestinians. Before the meeting, Lieberman visited the site of the shooting and had a cup of coffee in a local cafe.
“I do not intend to speak and detail the steps we intend to take, but I am sure that I have no intention to stop at words,” he said.
Earlier yesterday, defense officials suspended tens of thousands of special permits given to Palestinians to visit Israel during the current Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
Photo: Reuters
COGAT, an Israeli defense body, said 83,000 permits for Palestinians in the West Bank to visit relatives in Israel had been frozen.
Special Ramadan permits were also suspended for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip to visit relatives in Israel, travel abroad and attend prayers at the al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, COGAT said.
In addition, the military said it had frozen Israeli work permits for 204 of the attackers’ relatives, and was preventing Palestinians from leaving and entering the West Bank village of Yatta, the attackers’ home village.
The military was also making preparations to demolish the family home of one of the attackers. Israel often responds to attacks by demolishing the homes of the assailants or their relatives — a tactic that is criticized by the Palestinians and human rights groups as collective punishment.
In Tel Aviv, extra police units were mobilized, mainly around the city’s central bus station and train stations, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
In the attack, two Palestinians dressed in black suits opened fire at the Max Brenner restaurant in Sarona, killing four Israelis and wounding nine others.
Police identified the victims as Michael Feige, 58, a sociologist and anthropologist at Ben-Gurion University, and Ido Ben Arieh, 42, a veteran of an elite army unit who was an executive at the Coca-Cola Co’s Israel branch, his wife, who was injured in the attack, told Israeli media.
Two other victims were identified as Ilana Naveh, 39, and Mila Misheiv, 32.
Police said the two gunmen in their 20s were members of the same family from the Palestinian village of Yatta, near the West Bank city of Hebron.
One gunman was injured and was being treated in an Israeli hospital. The other was apprehended by security forces.
Ahmad Mussa Mahmara, the father of one of the attackers, said his son has two uncles serving life sentences in an Israeli prison.
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