fbpx

News

Israeli leaders express solidarity with London

[ssba]

Israeli leaders expressed solidarity with the UK following the terrorist attack that killed seven people and injured 50 on Saturday night.

The attack began when a van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge. Three men fled the van with large knives and attacked people at bars and restaurants in nearby Borough Market. Islamic State has since claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said: “The wave of terror that has struck the UK is all too familiar to us. We stand together for our values and our freedom.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the UK Mark Regev echoed President Rivlin by saying that “Israel stands in solidarity with London: terror & hatred will never defeat us”.

Opposition leader Isaac Herzog said that he was “appalled” by “another horrific terror attack in the UK,” calling for the world to “unite and work together to defeat terror”.

Several Israeli MKs and security analysts drew parallels between the London attacks and Palestinian terror attacks that have also involved car rammings and stabbings. Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan told Army Radio “there is much greater understanding today that the terror Israel has experienced … is not much different from the motives of extremist Islam that causes these attacks [in London]”.

Leading security analyst Amos Harel wrote in Haaretz that the terrorist attacks in the UK and Europe over the past few years resemble a “sort of intifada” in which “lone wolves” and terror cells are taking part.

Harel quotes Jihadi expert Aviv Oreg who claims that Islamic State’s overseas terrorist attacks are planned by personnel in Libya who also trained the leaders of the cells responsible for major attacks in Paris and Brussels over the last two years. Oreg added that late last year, due to its losses in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State moved its headquarters to Libya and set up a network of training bases and bomb-making workshops.