Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that the government is calling up police and army reservists after three people were killed in two separate attacks in Tel Aviv and the West Bank amid a spike in violence.
On Saturday, Netanyahu instructed the police to "mobilize all reserve border units" and directed the army to "mobilize additional forces."
According to the PM’s order, four reserve battalions of border police would be deployed in city centers as of Sunday, in addition to units already deployed in the Jerusalem region and in the central city of Lod, which has a mixed population of Jews and Arabs.
Israeli police gather around an overturned car at the site of an attack in Tel Aviv on April 7, 2023
© AFP 2023 / OREN ZIV
This comes after an Italian tourist was killed, and seven others were injured, when an Israeli Arab rammed his car into pedestrians on the Tel Aviv seafront promenade on Friday before being shot dead. Earlier on Friday, two young British-Israeli sisters were killed, and their mother seriously wounded, when their car was fired on in the Jordan Valley in the West Bank.
The attacks followed the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launching air strikes and an artillery bombardment in the early hours of Friday in retaliation against rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.
The Israeli military said that they specifically hit a number of targets belonging to the Palestinian militant group Hamas in southern Lebanon. According to the IDF, they attacked "infrastructure targets" and other sites which Tel Aviv views as belonging to the terror network.
This picture taken early on April 7, 2023 shows explosions in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip during Israeli air strikes on the Palestinian enclave
© AFP 2023 / -
"The IDF will not allow the terrorist organization Hamas to operate from Lebanon and considers the state of Lebanon responsible for all fire from its territory," the military noted.
Hamas, for its part, said in a statement that they “strongly condemn the blatant Zionist aggression against Lebanon," with Hamas member Basem Naim telling a Qatar-based broadcaster that people in Gaza have “no place to hide” and that rocket fire was a way for the enclave to defend itself from Israel.
Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, in turn, underlined that his government "categorically rejects any military escalation," as well as the use of Lebanon to stage acts that threaten stability.
New Al-Aqsa Mosque Violence
This was preceded by fresh Israeli violence inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem earlier this week, when dozens of Palestinians were injured during clashes with Israeli riot police who used stun grenades, gas, rubber bullets, batons and stocks of rifles.
Muslim worshippers pray outside the Dome of the Rock shrine at al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of Jerusalem on April 7, 2023 on the third Friday Noon prayer during the Muslim holy fasting month of Ramada
© AFP 2023 / AHMAD GHARABLI
Israeli police claimed in a statement that "several law-breaking youths and masked agitators" fortified the mosque, allegedly "in order to disrupt public order and desecrate” the facility.
"After many and prolonged attempts to get them out by talking to no avail, police forces were forced to enter the compound in order to get them out with the intentions to allow the Fajr [dawn] prayer and to prevent a violent disturbance. When the police entered, stones were thrown at them and fireworks were fired from inside the mosque by a large group of agitators," the police argued.
Netanyahu, in turn, insisted that the police "had to act to restore order," adding, "Israel is committed to maintaining freedom of worship, free access to all religions and the status quo on the Temple Mount, and will not allow violent extremists to change this."
The Islamic Waqf, which administers the Al-Aqsa site, however, described the Israeli police's actions as "a flagrant violation of the identity and function of the mosque as a place of worship for Muslims alone".
It was echoed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, who condemned the raid, describing it as an attack on Muslim worshippers. "We warn the Occupation [Israel] not to cross the red lines in the holy places, which will lead to the big explosion," the spokesman emphasized.
Hamas slammed the incident "an unprecedented crime" and warned Israel that there would be "consequences."
The clashes over the status of the Temple Mount, which houses the Al-Aqsa complex, have been going on for a long time, since the religious sanctuary is considered holy both by Muslim Palestinians and Jews.
Al-Aqsa Mosque-related tensions in May 2021 prompted Hamas to fire scores of rockets towards Jerusalem, triggering an 11-day conflict with Israel, which claimed the lives of at least 256 Palestinians and 13 people in the Jewish state.