PM visits bus stop where soldiers were killed, pledges terrorists will be caught
Beit El mayor asks Netanyahu to ensure that northern entrance to Ramallah remains sealed following attacks; premier vows that settlements will grow in response to violence
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday visited the Givat Assaf Junction in the West Bank where two IDF soldiers were killed in a terror attack last week and vowed that the military would catch the perpetrators.
“As you have heard, the manhunt is in full force. Over the weekend there were 100 arrests, yesterday [another] 36. It is only a question of time. We will find this killer as well. Just as we have found others, and we will settle the score with them,” Netanyahu said in a statement at the central West Bank bus stop.
The prime minister was greeted by Shai Alon, the chairman of the nearby Beit El local council. The settler leader pressed the prime minister to close a northern entrance to the Palestinian village of al-Bireh, which he claimed had been used by terrorists to flee toward Ramallah after carrying out attacks on Route 60, the West Bank’s main north-south artery.
After last Thursday’s attack in which Staff Sgt. Yovel Mor Yosef, 20, and Sgt. Yosef Cohen, 19, were killed, and another soldier and a civilian woman was seriously wounded, that entrance known by settlers as the “Focus Block” was sealed.
The Focus Block leads to a road used by Palestinians from al-Bireh and Ramallah to its south, and settlers from Beit El to its north, in order to reach Route 60.
Following the Second Intifada, the al-Bireh entrance was sealed save for VIP Palestinian convoys. Palestinians from Ramallah who wished to reach Route 60 were forced to go through Kafr Aqab or Birzeit, which often requires waiting in considerable inner-city traffic.
However, two years ago, the entrance was reopened for use by all Palestinians.
On Sunday — three days after the Givat Assaf Junction attack — the entrance was reopened. Alon immediately reached out to the IDF, which subsequently closed Focus Block.
The local settler official then released a statement publicly repeating the warning he made to IDF officials: “If Focus Block is opened, we will close it with our bodies.”
Netanyahu did not give immediately respond to Alon’s request on Tuesday, but said he would look into the issue.
However, the prime minister went on to assure the Beit El mayor that the government would expand the settlement enterprise in response to the latest spate of attacks.
“Palestinian terror thinks that it can uproot us. It won’t uproot us. This is the heart of our homeland. We will strengthen the settlements more each time (there is an attack), as we are doing now,” he said, going on to praise settlers for their resilience in the face of “murderous terror.”
The morning after the Givat Assaf Junction attack, a Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli soldier and bashed his head with a rock, seriously injuring him, at a military post outside the Beit El settlement. The assailant then fled the scene, prompting a manhunt, but later turned himself in.
Four days earlier, a Palestinian terrorist opened fire from a passing vehicle on a group of Israelis standing at a bus stop near the Ofra settlement. Seven people were injured, including a pregnant woman whose baby died after being delivered prematurely.
Settler leaders have been calling on the government to carry out extensive punitive measures against Palestinians in response to the latest attacks. This was in addition to demands for substantial settlement construction. Netanyahu responded to the calls last Thursday by announcing that he had directed the government — through Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit — to legalize some 2,000 illegal homes built on private Palestinian land throughout the West Bank. In addition, he ordered the Defense Ministry to advance building plans for 82 homes in the Ofra settlement and for new industrial zones in the Beitar Illit and Avnei Hefetz settlements.
On Monday, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation passed Regulation Law 2, which directs the Knesset-appointed outpost legalization committee to regulate 66 illegal hilltop communities in the next two years. In the meantime, the bill prevents those outposts from being demolished and ensures that they receive full government services.
While the international community considers all settlement activity illegal, Israel differentiates between legal settlement homes built and permitted by the Defense Ministry on land owned by the state, and illegal outposts built without necessary permits, often on private Palestinian land.
Although certain government ministries may currently not fund outposts to the same degree that they do settlements, local Israeli authorities throughout the West Bank have long taken financial responsibility for the illegal communities, ensuring that they are hooked up to water and electricity and receive the necessary public services. In addition, the IDF uses extensive resources to ensure that they are protected.
