PM orders new measures to combat terror wave

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wrapped up a four-hour security meeting Sunday evening on the recent uptick in violence in Jerusalem and the West Bank, ordering new measures to crack down on the wave of terror after two separate stabbing attacks in the capital Saturday, one of them fatal.

According to Channel 2, among the measures discussed were an increase in the use of administrative detention [that is the jailing of suspects without trial] for Palestinian rioters and terror suspects, an increase in the deployment of security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and the reintroduction of the controversial policy of demolishing terrorists’ homes.

At the end of the meeting, Netanyahu announced that he instructed security forces to “fast-track the razing of terrorists’ homes, expand the use of administrative detention against Palestinian rioters, reinforce the presence of security forces in Jerusalem and the West Bank, and ban those who incite [to terror] from the Old City and the Temple Mount.”

Netanyahu said Israel was “waging a fight to the death against Palestinian terror.”

Netanyahu met with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan, IDF Chief Gadi Eisenkot, the head of the Shin Bet security agency, Yoram Cohen, and other security officials.

According to Channel 10, security officials told Netanyahu that the recent wave of violence was just that, and not a third intifada.

Security officials also told the PM, according to the report, that despite Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s UN speech and recent tensions, security coordination between Israeli and Palestinian forces was ongoing.

Netanyahu told those present to act to calm tensions. He was said to have decided not to approve new construction plans in settlements in the West Bank in response to the terrorism.

The PM came back from New York Sunday afternoon after attending and speaking at the United Nations General Assembly and went directly to the IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv to discuss the security situation, less than 24 hours after two terror attacks Saturday night in Jerusalem left two people dead and three injured, including a toddler.

Following the terror attacks Saturday, sources close to the prime minister were quoted as saying: “They want a third intifada? They’ll get a second Defensive Shield,” in reference to the IDF’s crackdown on terrorism in the West Bank in 2002 in response to the second intifada.

“There will be many steps taken in the field which will harm Hamas’s infrastructure,” the sources said.

Netanyahu was to meet with the security cabinet Monday night after the conclusion of the Sukkot holiday to discuss operations against Hamas and other terror groups in the West Bank, Israel Hayom reported.

Earlier Sunday, police took the drastic step of barring Palestinians from Jerusalem’s Old City in the wake of an attack there Saturday in which a Palestinian killed two Israelis and wounded a child and a further stabbing early Sunday morning in which an Israeli teen was wounded.