JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military on Tuesday demolished homes of two Palestinian militants in east Jerusalem, the army’s first concrete steps following a late night Cabinet meeting in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a “strong hand” to quell recent deadly attacks.
The demolitions come amid weeks of heightened Palestinian unrest in east Jerusalem and the West Bank and a bloody holiday weekend in which four Israelis were killed in shooting and stabbing attacks. Israeli forces have killed four Palestinians during violent protests.
The violence threatens a new Israeli-Palestinian escalation at a time when a political solution to the conflict is increasingly distant and Palestinian frustrations are mounting after years of diplomatic paralysis.
The homes demolished early Tuesday belonged to the families of a man who killed four worshippers and a police officer in a Jerusalem synagogue last year, and a second attacker who killed one person when he rammed a bulldozer into traffic. Although the attackers were immediately killed, Israel often carries out such demolitions of the homes of militants’ families, believing it will deter future attacks.
Also Tuesday, troops sealed off a room at the home of a third attacker, who tried to kill a prominent Orthodox Jewish activist last year, ahead of its potential demolition.
“If Netanyahu thinks that this will create deterrence, then he is wrong. This will not deter anybody,” said Odai Hijazi, whose brother Motaz shot and seriously wounded Yehuda Glick, a Jewish nationalist who has campaigned for greater Jewish access to a sensitive Jerusalem holy site.
Thousands of Israelis, including three ministers in Netanyahu’s own government, demonstrated outside the prime minister’s home on Monday night, demanding tough action.
The rash of violence began Thursday when Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple in their car near a settlement in the West Bank as their four children watched from the backseat.
Two days later, a Palestinian stabbed an Israeli man to death, seriously wounded his wife and lightly injuring their 2-year-old toddler as they walked in Jerusalem’s Old City. He proceeded to stab another Israeli man to death and then opened fire at tourists and police before he was shot and killed by policemen who had rushed to the scene.
Israeli forces killed another Palestinian assailant over the weekend and on Monday the troops shot dead two teenagers — including a 13-year-old boy — who were throwing stones during clashes with Israeli soldiers in the West Bank.
Undercover Israeli troops later raided a Nablus hospital and nabbed a wounded Palestinian suspected of killing the Israeli couple.
Israeli intelligence said the Palestinian gunman had been accidentally shot by his friend as they killed the Israelis in Thursday’s drive-by shooting, prompting them to flee the scene and likely saving the lives of the four children in the back seat.
Netanyahu said Israel has also deployed thousands more troops in the crackdown.
“We are acting with a strong hand against terrorism and against inciters. We are operating on all fronts,” he said late Monday. “We are in a difficult struggle but one thing should be clear - we will win. Just as we defeated previous waves of terrorism, we will defeat this one as well.”
Tensions have been high in recent weeks over a major Jerusalem shrine that is sacred to Muslims and Jews and is key to the rival national narratives by the two sides. Many Palestinians believe that Israel is trying to expand a Jewish presence at the site, a claim Netanyahu has denied. The hilltop compound is revered by Muslims as the spot where Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven and by Jews as the site of the two Jewish biblical Temples.
There have been several days of clashes at the site over the past few weeks as Palestinians barricaded themselves inside the Al-Aqsa mosque while hurling stones, firebombs and fireworks at police. The unrest later spread to Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem and to the West Bank.
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This story has been corrected to show that five people were killed in the synagogue attack last year, not seven.
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