Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu mobilises army, police reserves after Tel Aviv attack

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday mobilised police and army reserves after separate attacks killed three people in the West Bank and Tel Aviv as tensions grip the region.

On Friday, Israeli police neutralised a terrorist who killed at least one person in a shooting and car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv.

“All the victims were tourists,” the Magen David Adom emergency service said, without providing details on their nationalities.

The country’s army said it had launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of Friday’s shooting in the occupied West Bank which killed two sisters and seriously wounded their mother.

It said the victims were fired on as their vehicle passed through Hamra junction in the northern part of the Jordan Valley. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Oded Revivi, mayor of the settlement of Efrat, confirmed the victims in the West Bank shooting were Israeli sisters aged 16 and 20, and the wounded woman was their mother.

A British diplomat later confirmed that the two also held UK passports, while calling for “all parties… to de-escalate tensions”.

Israel-Lebanon tensions escalate

Friday’s attacks came after Israel launched air strikes and an artillery bombardment before dawn in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Israel “struck targets, including terror infrastructures, belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation in southern Lebanon”, the army said.

The Lebanese army said it had found and dismantled a multiple rocket launcher in an olive grove in the Marjayoun area near the border, still loaded with six primed rockets.

The Israeli army said it had hit two tunnels and “two weapon manufacturing sites” belonging to Hamas in Gaza “as a response to the security violations of Hamas”.

It said air defences intercepted 25 rockets on Thursday, while five hit Israeli territory.

Israel “will not allow the Hamas terrorist organisation to operate from within Lebanon”, it added.

On Friday, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said “the threats and intimidation of the Zionist leaders will lead nowhere”.

Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht had blamed Palestinian militants for the rocket fire from Lebanon.

UN calls for restraint

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which patrols the area along the border, urged restraint, adding: “Both sides have said they do not want a war.”

On Friday evening, the army said it had shot down a drone that entered Israel’s airspace from Lebanon.

The Palestinian health ministry had earlier reported “partial damage” to the Al-Dorra children’s hospital in Gaza City. Hecht said Israel was investigating.

Hamas condemned the “appalling Israeli aggression” and said it holds Israel “fully responsible for the consequences”.

Al-Aqsa Mosque raid

A Qatari official on Friday said Doha was mediating between Israel and the Palestinians.

Doha — which has previously mediated between Israel and Hamas — “is working to deescalate the situation on all sides, with the latest contact being noon today,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli riot police had stormed the prayer hall of Al-Aqsa mosque in a pre-dawn Wednesday raid aiming to dislodge “law-breaking youths and masked agitators” they said had barricaded themselves inside.

The violence sparked an exchange of rockets and air strikes with militants in Gaza.

UN chief Antonio Guterres meanwhile has urged “all actors to exercise maximum restraint”.

The United States said it recognised “Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself”, while France vowed “unwavering” support for “Israel’s security and Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty”.

An Iran foreign ministry spokesperson “strongly condemned the attacks of the aggressor Zionist regime”, and Russia called for “an end to the violence” and a “lasting ceasefire”.

Hamas and Islamic Jihad told Egypt, a longstanding mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, that rocket fire would continue “if Israel continues its aggressions and air strikes but, if these aggressions stop, they will cease fire,” Palestinian sources told AFP.

With inputs from AFP

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