Ben Gvir vows to ‘thrash’ criminals in Tarabin al-Sana, urges Shin Bet to join raid

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir vowed to press on with an ongoing days-long police raid in the Bedouin town of Tarabin al-Sana on Wednesday, during his third visit to the village within a week.

“We are continuing, without blinking, in order to subdue these criminals,” he said in an address to reporters near the town’s entrance, cordoned off by cinderblocks.

“If need be, I’ll come here another 20 times. The police will be here, and the National Guard will be here. When we enter, you can see that all these criminals are cowardly,” he said.

He rushed to the southern town after reports of an arson incident near a Jewish community in the area, in which five cars went up in flames in a gas station parking lot at the entrance to Lehavim.

Police claimed the arson was a “price tag” attack by Bedouin residents seeking revenge over the anti-crime raid, ongoing for three days since hundreds of police and Border Police officers entered the village on Monday.

But Jewish residents expressed doubts that the attack was nationally motivated, and speculated it was instead linked to an extortion racket targeting the gas station owner.

Ben Gvir was flanked by heavily armed police officers as he walked the streets. At his side were members of the Border Police’s National Guard force, which assumed responsibility for operations in the town on Tuesday. Border Police officers fanned out, conducting searches in houses the minister passed by on the road.

“I took into consideration that they would try to test us, but I know one thing from my experience in the prisons against the terrorists,” he said. “When we succeeded, we didn’t blink.”

He said that criminals have only one option, “to raise a white flag” amid the operation. “I say to everyone who is law-abiding, there is nothing to fear, but to everyone who isn’t law-abiding, we will thrash you.”

The far-right minister called on the Shin Bet internal security agency to involve itself in the crackdown and claimed that the security agency’s new chief, David Zini, agreed with him that the Wednesday night arson incident was “terror in every sense.”

He said that there has been a “change” in the agency since Zini took over. “The Shin Bet now goes down to the Negev and operates in towns like these, but I want the Shin Bet and police to be here 100%,” he declared.

Police said that they arrested 24 suspects on various offenses in the town since Monday, including four minors for stone-throwing.

Responding to a question from The Times of Israel, Ben Gvir defended the police’s arrest of minors during the raid, which included two boys under the age of 12, the age of criminal responsibility.

“If a minor throws a stone, he needs to be dealt with harshly. A stone is a stone; stones kill,” he said. “Even a minor, if he throws a stone, they [law enforcement] will thrash him.”

The raid began several days after earlier arson incidents rocked two Jewish towns near Tarabin al-Sana.

Overnight Friday, masked assailants were caught on security camera footage setting cars on fire. Residents also reported that their vehicles’ windows had been shattered.

Police arrested three suspects in the incident within 24 hours. Nevertheless, law enforcement still decided to raid the town in what the National Guard’s commander described as a “message” to town residents.

At the main entrance to Tarabin al-Sana, members of the National Guard force, a controversial Border Police force that came into being under Ben Gvir, checked the identity cards of all those entering or leaving the village.

Drivers formed a line as they waited to undergo a security inspection at the ad hoc checkpoint.

Residents bemoaned law enforcement’s new practice of erecting haphazard checkpoints at the entrances to towns. The roadblocks, which so far were placed in Tarabin al-Sana, Lakiya and Tel Sheva, have been prone to cause hours-long traffic jams.

Such roadblocks are commonplace in West Bank Palestinian towns and East Jerusalem neighborhoods, but the practice has seldom been used against Israeli citizens until November this year.

Rahat mayor Talal Alkernawi, who serves as the head of an umbrella organization for Negev Bedouin towns, said he intends to take legal action against the practice by petitioning the High Court of Justice to intervene.

Police have been cracking down on Bedouin towns throughout the Negev over the past month, as part of an anti-crime operation that Ben Gvir declared in November. The operation aims to stem violent crime, arms trafficking and traffic violations among southern Israel’s Bedouin population.

Speaking to the press after Ben Gvir’s visit, Alkernawi derided Ben Gvir as a megalomaniac seeking heightened tensions between Jews and Arabs in the south.

“We have nothing against the Israel Police, but this violent megalomaniac who comes and essentially wants to set this place on fire,” he said.

Ra’am lawmaker Waleed Alhawashleh, a member of the Bedouin community, called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to intervene in the operation underway in Tarabin al-Sana.

“I know that the prime minister is currently in the United States, but there must be a directive to the police” to put an end to the “campaign of incitement,” Alhawashleh urged.

“This man [Ben Gvir] cannot make choices in a sane manner. He comes here, and he wants to cause damage to the relations between Jews and Bedouins in the Negev, and we aren’t interested in this,” he continued.