Published
The funeral of the victims of the attack that killed five people on Tuesday evening in the Jewish-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak began on Wednesday. This is the third such attack in a week.
On Wednesday, the funerals of the other two victims, Yaakov Shalom and Rabbi Avishai Yehezkel, took place in Bnei Brak (pictured).
AFP
Israel began burying its dead on Wednesday and tracking relatives of a Palestinian who carried out an attack that killed five people near Tel Aviv, the third in a week in the country, raising fears of a new “wave” of violence.
On Tuesday evening, a Palestinian from the occupied West Bank opened fire on crowds driving through the Jewish-Orthodox town of Bnei Brak, and the neighboring town of Ramat Gan, before being shot dead by security forces. The attack killed five people, including two Ukrainian workers who arrived in Israel before the recent wave of refugees linked to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and an Israeli Arab policeman, Amir Khoury, who took part in the operation to shoot down the assailant and labeled a “hero” by the government.
On Wednesday, the funerals of the other two victims, Yaakov Shalom and Rabbi Avishai Yehezkel, took place in Bnei Brak. Yehezkel “had married a year and a half ago, he had a two-year-old son and his wife was pregnant,” David Numa, one of his relatives, told AFP. The bodies of the two Ukrainians, whose identity has not been confirmed, must be repatriated to their country, while the funeral oration of the policeman, from the town of Nof Hagalil, near Nazareth (north), is planned Thursday.
“Abyss of Hatred”
In the wake of the attack, the army deployed reinforcements in the occupied West Bank and multiplied the arrests on Wednesday, in particular of members of the family of the author of the attack, Dia Hamarshah, a Palestinian from the village of Yaabad, in the northern West Bank, having spent four years in Israeli prisons. The armed Islamist movement Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip but also with supporters in Israel, Jerusalem and the West Bank, welcomed the attack, strongly condemned however by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the UN, France, the United States and Egypt in particular.
Earlier this week, Mahmoud Abbas spoke with the King of Jordan, the country responsible for Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, in the hope of avoiding excesses during large gatherings in the Holy City linked to the fasting month of Ramadan. which is due to start this weekend. And besides, Israeli President Isaac Herzog went to Jordan on Wednesday to meet King Abdullah II. “The fact that Muslim leaders meet Jewish and Israeli leaders is an alternative to the abyss of hatred,” the Israeli president said on the spot according to his services.
Last year, clashes in East Jerusalem, the Palestinian portion of the Holy City occupied by Israel, led to bloody clashes on the esplanade of the Mosques, then to an 11-day war between Hamas and Israel. “Israel is facing a wave of deadly Arab terrorism,” said Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, also referring to the two previous attacks, on March 22 and Sunday, perpetrated by Israeli Arabs linked to the jihadist movement.
In a statement released Wednesday night, he called on Israelis with guns not to go out without them. He also reported “more than 200 interrogations and arrests”. US President Joe Biden told Naftali Bennett on Wednesday that “the United States (stands) firmly and resolutely with Israel in the face of (the) terrorist threat and all threats once morest the State of Israel,” according to the White House.
From Hamas to the Islamic State group?
If last year the war opposed the Jewish state to Hamas, this time the authorities fear to see also attacks inspired or linked to the jihadist organization Islamic State.
On Sunday in Hadera, in northern Israel, two policemen were killed in a shooting claimed by IS. Police identified the attackers, who were shot, as Israeli Arab ISIS members from Umm al-Fahm, an Arab town in northern Israel. On March 22, in Beersheva, a large city in the southern Negev desert, four Israelis were killed in a stabbing and car-ramming attack perpetrated by a teacher sentenced in 2016 to four years in prison for planning to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS.
On Wednesday, police also announced the arrest of an 18-year-old man in Rahat, Negev, suspected of being a member of IS.
(AFP)