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Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised on Saturday a “strong, swift and precise” response to a deadly Palestinian shooting attack near a synagogue on the outskirts of Jerusalem, as the military sent more troops into the occupied West Bank.
Seven people were killed in the attack on Friday and two others were wounded in another shooting in the city on Friday.
“We are not seeking escalation, but we are ready for any scenario,” Netanyahu said during a security cabinet meeting where he said he would increase gun permits for licensed civilians to defend against street attacks.
On Saturday, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy opened fire on a group of Israelis through two wounds, before being shot and wounded by one of them, police said, in Silwan, a Palestinian neighborhood located under the wall of the old city of Jerusalem.
The attack comes at the end of a month of escalating confrontations and comes after an Israeli attack on the West Bank on Thursday that killed nine Palestinians, including seven gunmen, and cross-border fire between Israel and Gaza.
An Israeli military spokesman said additional battalions had been sent to the West Bank to reinforce them.
There were no signs, however, that Israel was preparing a large-scale operation and the brief cross-border exchange with Gaza ended without casualties. On Monday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken will arrive for a two-day visit to Israel and the West Bank, where clashes have been escalating.
Thursday’s attack was the deadliest in years in the West Bank, where Israel has stepped up operations since deadly Palestinian street attacks on towns last year.
At least 30 Palestinians – militants and civilians – have been killed in the West Bank since the beginning of the month.
Nine Palestinians were killed in an Israeli military attack on the occupied West Bank city of Jenin. Israel’s military says its forces are moving in to arrest Islamic Jihad militants who are planning a major attack.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas did not mention the shooting in a statement issued by the official Palestinian agency WAFA, and blamed Israel for the escalation of violence.
Abbas’s Palestinian Authority, which has limited governing powers in the West Bank, suspended a security cooperation agreement with Israel after the deadly Jenin attack.
Survivors recount synagogue shootings
The attack outside the synagogue was the deadliest in the Jerusalem area since 2008. It happened in a neighborhood on land Israel annexed to Jerusalem after it was captured in the 1967 Middle East war, in a move not recognized internationally.
The gunman, Khaire Alkam, is a 21-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem. Among the dead was a 14-year-old boy, police said. No group claimed responsibility for the shooting and Alkam’s father told Reuters his son had no links to militants.
Forty-two people, including family members, have been arrested, police said. Netanyahu said he would also propose a cabinet meeting sanction the attacker’s family.
Palestinian gunmen killed at least seven people and wounded three others after opening fire outside an East Jerusalem synagogue, according to Israeli authorities. Police said the shooter had no organizational ties.
The police said the gunman in the attack there arrived at 8:15 pm and opened with a handgun, hitting several people before being killed by the police.
Shimon Israel, 56, who lives nearby, said his family had just started their Sabbath dinner when they heard gunshots and screams. He opened the window and saw a neighbor running down the street calling for the police.
“I told Eli, don’t go there. Eli don’t go.” They got married just a year ago. They are good neighbors, like brothers,” Israel told Reuters. “He ran. I saw him fall there.”
“Natali, his wife, ran after him. She saw him here and tried to resuscitate him.
In Tel Aviv, tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul Israel’s judiciary, starting the protest with a minute’s silence for the dead.
The gunman is the brother of a 17-year-old Palestinian who was shot dead on Wednesday during clashes with Israeli forces in a Jerusalem refugee camp, his family said.
His father, Moussa Alkam, said he did not know if his son was seeking revenge. “He is not the first or the last young man to be martyred and what he did is a source of pride,” Alkam said.
The attack was condemned
At a Jerusalem hospital treating casualties, Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said he would increase the number of gun permits.
“I want weapons on the street. I want Israeli citizens to be able to protect themselves,” he said.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who leads the pro-settler Religious Zionism party, said he would demand the acceleration of Israeli settlement construction plans in the West Bank, which his party hopes will be annexed.
Ben-Gvir and Smotrich are members of Netanyahu’s security cabinet but there is no indication that they will meet their demands, some of which have been made in the past.
The shooting on Friday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was condemned by the White House and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who called for “extreme restraint.” It comes days before US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s planned visit to Israel and the West Bank.
A Ukrainian woman was among the dead, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in Kyiv.
Jordan and Egypt, Arab countries that have signed a peace treaty with Israel, condemned the shooting as did the United Arab Emirates, one of several Arab countries that normalized relations with Israel just over two years ago.
Saudi Arabia, which has no official ties with Israel, condemned the targeting of civilians and said there was a need to stop the escalation of violence.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah group praised the attack and Hamas said it was a response to Thursday’s Jenin attack, as did the smaller Islamic Jihad.
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