GUN PERMITS
The government went one step further on Sunday, announcing that the home of a 13-year-old boy who shot two Israelis would also be sealed off “even though his attack caused severe injury to its victims and not their deaths”.
The boy was shot and detained after the attack in Silwan, a neighbourhood just outside east Jerusalem’s walled Old City.
The punitive measures announced are in line with proposals from Netanyahu’s extreme-right political partners, whose support enabled him to return to power at the end of December.
They are likely to apply primarily to Palestinians with Israeli nationality, known as Arab-Israelis, and Palestinians with residency permits for annexed east Jerusalem.
Revoking Israeli identity cards of the relatives of attackers was also on the agenda Sunday at Netanyahu’s weekly cabinet meeting.
The government also plans to make it easier for Israeli citizens to obtain permits to carry firearms.
“When civilians have guns, they can defend themselves,” extreme-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told reporters outside a Jerusalem hospital on Saturday.
The Jerusalem attacks came after the deadliest raid by Israeli forces in the West Bank in nearly two decades, which killed 10 Palestinians.
Israel said the raid in Jenin on Thursday targeted Islamic Jihad operatives, whose militants along with Hamas later fired several rockets from Gaza towards Israel.
Most of the rockets were intercepted by Israeli defence systems, before the military responded with strikes on Hamas targets inside the Palestinian enclave. There were no casualties reported on either side.
Since the start of the year, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has claimed the lives of 34 Palestinian adults and children – including attackers, militants and civilians.
Friday’s shooting was the first fatal attack targeting Israelis this year and killed six Israeli civilians, including a child, and one Ukrainian civilian.
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