Netanyahu vows to restore security ‘on all fronts’

Tel Aviv, Israel (AFP):

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to restore security “on all fronts” after surging violence that included rocket fire from Lebanon and Syria.

Netanyahu also reinstated the defence minister whose firing he announced last month.

Heavy clashes, shootings, rocket strikes and a car-ramming attack have marred a period when the Muslim holy month of Ramadan coincides with the Jewish Passover and Christian Easter.

The latest casualties were a Palestinian teenager and a British-Israeli mother who succumbed on Monday to injuries from a West Bank gun attack that earlier killed her two daughters.

The day after Israeli police on Wednesday stormed the prayer hall of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque — Islam’s third-holiest site — more than 30 rockets were fired from Lebanese soil into Israel, an attack which the Israeli army said was most likely carried out by the Hamas movement.

Israel then bombarded the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon, targeting infrastructures that it said belonged to Hamas.

“We will not allow the terrorist Hamas to establish itself in Lebanon”, by acting on “all fronts,” Netanyahu said at a news conference on Monday.

Israeli-Palestinian violence had already intensified since Netanyahu’s new government took power in December, a coalition with extreme-right and ultra-Orthodox Jewish parties.

The latest surge came after he late last month announced a “pause” for dialogue on judicial reform legislation which split the nation and caused divisions in his government.

Among the political casualties was Yoav Gallant, whom the prime minister dismissed on March 26 after he cited national security concerns, threats by reserve military personnel not to report for duty, in calling for a halt to the legislative process.

Netanyahu is currently battling very low levels of domestic popularity. A recent survey showed him likely to lose if an election were held now.

At his news conference, Netanyahu said he and Gallant had “difficult disputes” but he has decided to put them in the past.

“Gallant remains in his post and we will continue to work together for the safety of the citizens of Israel,” he said.

Palestinian teen killed

In the latest shooting in the territory, Israeli forces killed a Palestinian teenager, Mohammed Fayez Balhan, 15, and wounded two other people, the Palestinian health ministry said.

Hamas said it mourned the “young martyr” and praised those “standing up to this arrogant enemy”.

Earlier, a Jerusalem hospital confirmed that a British-Israeli woman, Lucy (Leah) Dee, had died after being seriously injured in a shooting attack Friday in the West Bank that killed her two daughters, aged 16 and 20.

Their car came under fire in the Jordan Valley, where Jericho is also located. The families were residents of Efrat, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 Six-Day War and hundreds of thousands of Jewish settlers live in Israeli-approved settlements there which are considered illegal under international law.