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Netanyahu vows to deal with extremist settlers
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to act harshly against extremist settlers who attack security forces, after radical settlers attacked an army base and lightly injured a senior officer yesterday. Netanyahu said that he would fight the phenomenon “with all my force until it is eliminated.” The PM also noted that he had met the heads of the security and legal establishment, and tasked them with presenting him a “heavy-handed” plan within a week to combat this “calamity.” “We will combine investigative teams in the IDF, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) and the police and we will conquer this evil affliction,” the prime minister said.
IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz, who spoke before Netanyahu at a national security conference yesterday, also called the attacks an “unfathomable absurdity.” Gantz added that, “the IDF that defends its people, found it had to defend itself against them. This is absurd beyond belief and I hope the perpetrators will be put to justice and I am convinced that the leaders and authorities will do everything necessary to achieve this.”
Haaretz this morning notes that intelligence officials had issued repeated warnings over the past few months that extreme settler groups will try to sabotage IDF military targets. On Monday evening around 30 settler extremists tried to take over an abandoned building in a closed off military zone near the Jordanian border. On Tuesday morning around 50 settler activists entered an IDF base in the West Bank and hurled stones and punctured tires. Such incidents, dubbed “price-tag” attacks, aim to deter the government from taking action against illegal settlement activity in the West Bank.
In a separate incident, arsonists set fire to a deserted mosque in central Jerusalem overnight. There was no structural damage, but the arsonists scrawled graffiti reading “price-tag,” and anti-Islamic phrases. Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat denounced the act, adding that zero tolerance should be shown to violence of any kind, and that coexistence in the city must be kept at all costs.