Israel seals home of Palestinian synagogue shooter as Netanyahu vows crackdown
- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans on Sunday to make it easier for Israelis to carry guns after the synagogue attack
- Israeli authorities welded shut the doors and sealed the windows of the home of the family of Friday’s synagogue shooter. Seven people were killed
Israeli police sealed off the Jerusalem family home of a Palestinian gunman two days after he killed seven people outside a synagogue, as fears grew of further escalation in the deadliest unrest for years in Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced plans on Sunday to make it easier for Israelis to carry guns after the synagogue attack, the deadliest against Jews in the Jerusalem area since 2008. It came a day after the deadliest Israeli military raid for years in the West Bank city of Jenin.
Since then, a 13-year-old Palestinian boy opened fire on a group of Israeli passers-by in Jerusalem on Saturday, wounding two before one of the civilians shot and wounded him. On Sunday, residents of a Palestinian village outside Ramallah in the West Bank said a group from a nearby Israeli settlement had burned one house and smashed doors and windows of another.
Netanyahu said making it easier for Israelis to get permits to carry guns would reduce violence: “We have seen, time and again … that heroic, armed and trained civilians save lives.”
Israeli authorities welded shut the doors and sealed the windows of the home of the family of Friday’s synagogue shooter. Netanyahu’s government also changed a standing policy to seal off the house of the family of the 13-year-old shooter in Saturday’s attack, even though no one had been killed.
Further steps were also announced to strengthen settlements in the occupied West Bank, and to revoke residency rights from relatives of Palestinians who carry out attacks.
“While we will not hesitate to act against terrorism, we wish to regain calm and stability on the ground,” said Defence Minister Yoav Gallant after a security assessment in the West Bank.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is expected to arrive in Jerusalem and the West Bank this week for his first visit since Netanyahu returned to power at the helm of a coalition that includes Israel’s far-right. Blinken’s visit now looks set to be dominated by efforts to prevent the violence spinning out of control.
