Amid clashes and killings that have blazed into a second week Israel’s cabinet unanimously approved mandatory minimum sentences for Jerusalemites and Israeli citizens who throw stones or launch heftier projectiles such as firebombs and fireworks.
At dusk Thursday evening nearly 200 right-wing Israelis took to the streets of Jerusalem, chanting racist anti-Arab epitaphs and nationalist songs. The march came at the end of day that saw Israeli forces kill two Palestinians and Palestinian attackers wound nine Israelis, including two soldiers, in four separate attacks, the highest number of serious injuries inflicted on Israelis in recent weeks. At the time of publication the right-wing group was marching from West Jerusalem into Palestinian East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat, who was recently spotted holding a Glock in an East Jerusalem neighborhood, today suggested Israeli citizens prepare themselves for vigilantism and called for all Israelis with valid gun licenses to carry weapons following soaring tensions.
A brutal video shows undercover Israeli forces infiltrate a group of Palestinians protesters this afternoon near a checkpoint outside of Ramallah in the West Bank and open fire on the demonstrators. The video also shows unformed Israeli soldiers wound two more protesters with live rounds, critically injuring one by firing a shot into the back of the protester’s head.
Scores of Palestinians were injured in clashes across the West Bank, after calls were made for a “day of rage” following a string of Palestinian attacks on Israeli citizens, Israeli incursions into the West Bank and Jerusalem—including the demolition of two homes overnight Monday—and a pronouncement from Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu that he is now “running an all-out war against Palestinian terrorism.”
Settlers and soldiers descended on Ramallah following Palestinian attacks that claimed four Israeli lives in recent days, and mobs in Jerusalem chant “Death to Arabs,” as some Palestinians speculate that a third intifada has begun in response to incursions on the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Israel’s security cabinet voted unanimously Thursday evening to permit the use of sniper-fire against stone throwers in circumstances where an officer’s life is not at imminent risk. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed the changes and declared the increased measures were a “fight against those who throw rocks and firebombs, and shoot fireworks.”
On Friday afternoon prayers one Palestinian was shot by Israeli forces, and two Israeli police were injured in clashes across Jerusalem, amid a week of upheaval centering around al-Aqsa Mosque. In preparation for a call from Hamas for a “day of rage” Israeli police deployed 5,000 around Jerusalem and limited access to the Muslim holy sites by age. By evening Israel’s parliament approved drafting army reservists to street patrols, a signal of continuing strife.
Aida Touma-Sliman, a member of Knesset for the Joint Arab List, says that Israel could indict Jewish terrorists for the Duma murders but it lacks the political will to do so. “In the last few years there were 17 mosques and churches burned down or attacked by right-wing activists or racists,” she told Allison Deger. “These are the extreme cases, but everyday we hear about cases by the seashore, or at the nightclubs—or of hotels warning their visitors that they might have Muslims [guests].”
Immediately after the firebombing of the occupied West Bank village of Duma that killed eighteen-month-old Ali Dawabshe and later his parents, Israeli politicians competed to see who could be more extreme in their denunciations. But as the young parents of baby Ali succumbed to their wounds, the politicians who had been so vociferous were largely silent. What explains this gap between rhetoric and reality? Veteran Israeli journalist Akiva Eldar tells Dan Cohen the lack of Israeli accountability for Jewish vigilante violence is not new, “The message is that you can get away with murder, literally.”