Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Sunday to "strengthen" Israeli settlements and arm thousands of Israelis after a series of attacks by Palestinians in Israeli-occupied territories.
The Israeli security cabinet on Sunday approved a series of controversial measures Netanyahu proposed a day earlier in the wake of two separate attacks against Israelis since Friday.
Israeli occupation soldiers on Saturday opened fire in the direction of Palestinian journalists while covering an event in the town of Beita, near Nablus, the official news agency WAFA reported.
Palestinian journalist Wahaj Bani Moufleh told WAFA that he and his colleague, Mohammad Sumrin, were preparing a report on the Israeli army’s closure of the Beita entrance with cement boulders. Israeli soldiers shot live gunfire in their direction despite the fact that they were wearing vests clearly indicating that they were press.
Israeli settlers unleashed a wave of attacks targeting Palestinians and their properties in the occupied West Bank on the morning of 29 January, according to reports.
According to WAFA news agency, the Palestinian official Ghassan Daghlas spoke of 144 registered attacks in the occupied West Bank.
Settlers threw stones, damaged vehicles, and set fire to at least six vehicles in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.
The new far-right government in Israel has been in power for only a month, but on its watch, Israelis and Palestinians have already experienced one of their region’s most violent phases, outside a full-scale war, in years.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans to make it easier for Israelis to get firearms amid escalating violence in the occupied Palestinian territory, a move seen as “collective punishment” and one that could further increase the violence.
The Jordanian Ambassador to the State of Israel was recently denied entry to Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem – the third-holiest site in Islam. This is an incident that is so severe and so dangerous that not only the Jordanian government but the entire Arab and Muslim world – as well as the West – should have reprimanded Israel severely.
Israel has launched airstrikes on the besieged Gaza Strip a day after killing at least 10 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, prompting the Palestinian resistance to fire rockets at the occupied territories in retaliation.
The Palestinian Information center said Israeli warplanes raided areas west and south of Gaza, including posts belonging to the Palestinian resistance, on Thursday night and Friday at dawn.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday urged the NATO military alliance to toughen its approach to Iran, as Tehran supplies drones to Russia for its war on Ukraine.
“The crisis there goes beyond the boundaries of Ukraine, with the Iranian threat now at Europe’s doorstep,” Herzog said on a visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels.
“The illusion of distance can no longer hold. NATO must take the strongest possible stance against the Iranian regime including through economic, legal and political sanctions and credible military deterrence.”
Israel launched airstrikes on Gaza on Friday in response to militant rocket fire from the Palestinian enclave, as tensions rise following the deadliest army raid on the occupied West Bank in years.
The current flare in violence began on Thursday, when Israel launched a raid on the refugee camp of Jenin, killing nine people. In response, rockets were fired from Gaza hours later and blocked by the Iron Dome. Israel then launched air strikes into Gaza, in the early hours of Friday morning.
Israel has continued to step up its near-daily raids across the occupied West Bank, killing scores of Palestinians over the past year.
The spike in killings comes as part of intensified nightly raids by Israeli forces, particularly in the northern occupied cities of Jenin and Nablus, under the banner of crushing limited Palestinian armed resistance.
