‘Aggressive’ steps against West Bank Palestinians

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu yesterday announced “aggressive” measures against Palestinians in the West Bank, in response to new deadly attacks against Israelis.
“We are using various means, including aggressive measures that we have not used in the past,” Netanyahu told his cabinet in Jerusalem.
The new measures include cordoning off the entire Hebron district on the southern West Bank, affecting 700,000 people, he said.
Palestinian gunmen in the Hebron area on Friday shot dead a Jewish rabbi in front of his children in a road ambush.
On Thursday, a Palestinian from the area infiltrated the Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, entered a house and stabbed to death a 13-year-old Israeli girl in her bed.
Netanyahu said the Israeli military had revoked all permits to enter and work in Israel for residents of the Palestinian village of Bani Naim, where the knife attacker and other assailants had come from.
Reinforcements were also securing roads used by settlers in the area, Netanyahu said.
A plan to strengthen security in Kiryat Arba and other settlements in the area would be discussed at the next cabinet meeting, Netanyahu said.
The Israeli military arrested some 13 Palestinians overnight, including the sister of the Kiryat Arba knife attacker, who was being questioned.
Hundreds of people, including President Reuven Rivlin, attended the funeral of Rabbi Michael “Miki” Mark yesterday in the Jewish settlement of Otniel, south of Hebron.
The rabbi’s wife and two of 10 children were injured in Friday’s shooting attack.
Meanwhile, Israel yesterday barred the Hebron governor from entering its territory after he visited the family of a Palestinian who killed a US-Israeli teenage girl in her sleep, officials said.
The decision to bar mayor Kamal Humeid from Israel was taken by COGAT, the Israeli defence ministry unit which manages civilian affairs for Palestinians in the West Bank and liaises with Gaza.
A statement said Humeid had paid a condolence visit to Tarayra’s family and was therefore “barred from entering Israel” and that he had been stripped of “his privileges”, without elaborating.
Humeid said on Facebook he does not enjoy any special privileges and has “no business in Israel” that would lead him to enter the Jewish state.
A day after Thursday’s attack, 48-year-old Israeli Michael Mark was killed after his car was fired on by a suspected Palestinian gunman south of Hebron.