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De-escalation followed, on the regional front at least, after Netanyahu’s cabinet and Israel’s defense establishment voted unanimously in favor of limited strikes on Lebanese territory which, ultimately, did not cause any casualties or draw immediate retaliation.
But by Friday evening, tensions were rising again, this time domestically, as two British Israeli sisters were shot dead in the West Bank’s Jordan Valley and an Italian national was killed in Tel Aviv when a resident of the majority-Arab city of Kafr Qassem rammed his car into a crowd of tourists.
Netanyahu returned to office late last year as part of a new governing coalition, the most right-wing and religiously conservative in Israel’s history. The response from the coalition’s leading players this week underscored just how delicate his position has become, as the more-extreme figures on whom he depends to govern call for harsher action.
Israel’s decades-long conflict stems back to the partition of the British Mandate of Palestine into Arab and Jewish states after the anti-Jewish atrocities during World War II. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced in the war that followed the partition, and the territory today is divided into the state of Israel and the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
Since the new government took office in December, violence has surged in the West Bank, in particular, as Jewish settlers there have stepped up attacks against Palestinian residents and Israeli security forces carry out increasingly deadly raids targeting a new generation of Palestinian militants.
Bezalel Smotrich — a settler leader and high-ranking member of Netanyahu’s cabinet — said Friday that his patience with the government was wearing thin.
“The fact that checkpoints around [the West Bank city of] Nablus are open is an intolerable crime,” said Smotrich, who has administrative powers over Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, in a message to supporters cited by the Times of Israel.
“We’ve been speaking about this for weeks. I try very hard to be loyal in outward appearances and not attack the government I am a member of, but it can’t continue like this,” he said.
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, a former settler activist and lawyer for settlers accused of violently attacking Palestinians, also criticized the government Thursday for not responding more forcefully to the cross-border rocket attacks.
“I have a certain influence, but it’s certainly not enough, and I often find myself frustrated by certain decisions,” he wrote on Facebook — although news reports covering his comments also pointed out the unanimity of the decision by the security cabinet, of which he is a member.
Mass demonstrations against a controversial government plan to weaken the Supreme Court were to enter their 14th week Saturday, with organizers in Tel Aviv saying they would carry on with their rallies as planned despite this week’s violence. Netanyahu said late last month that he was pausing his plans for judicial changes for the Passover holiday as protests by hundreds of thousands of Israelis gathered pace and a growing strike movement briefly crippled public institutions.
“Since the government was sworn in, its leaders have been engaged in a judicial coup that is tearing the people apart, neglecting our security, damaging the economy, and harming Israel’s status in the world,” protest leaders said in a statement shared via WhatsApp. “During this current security escalation, the ministers have been busy inciting instead of fulfilling their roles.”
They said the rally in Tel Aviv, due to start at 6:30 p.m. local time, would begin with a minute’s silence in honor of the victims of Friday’s attacks.
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