by Israel’s security cabinet approved measures to curb terrorism after deadly attacks in Jerusalem, including making it easier for Israeli civilians to carry weapons and revoking terrorists’ residency and citizenship.
– We will demand a price from those who carry out terrorist attacks and from their supporters, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly government meeting after two terrorist attacks shook the capital.
The Security Cabinet passed a measure to make it easier for law-abiding Israeli citizens to obtain licenses to carry firearms, which in Israel is notoriously difficult.
“When civilians have weapons, they can defend themselves,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir told reporters on Saturday night.
Netanyahu also said that Israel would “strengthen itself [Jewish] settlements” in the West Bank “to make it clear to the terrorists who are trying to uproot us from our land that we are here to stay.”
In perhaps the most controversial move, Netanyahu said the cabinet would discuss “revoking Israeli identity cards and residency for terror-supporting families of terrorists.”
An injured man is taken to an ambulance as police carry out security assessments around the shooting area after two Israeli settlers were injured in another shooting attack in Jerusalem. (Saeed Qaq/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The prime minister’s office said Israel’s acting interior minister as well as its attorney general would submit bills to “revoke terrorists’ residency and citizenship and remove them to the territory of the Palestinian Authority.”
Seven people were killed, including a minor, in a terrorist attack Friday night in the Neve Ya’akov neighborhood of Jerusalem as they left a synagogue after Sabbath services. The attack occurred on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The terrorist, identified as Alqam Khayri, a 21-year-old resident of East Jerusalem, was shot dead by police while trying to flee.
A second attack took place the following morning when a 13-year-old terrorist opened fire on a group of Israelis outside Jerusalem’s Old City, seriously wounding two people, a father and son. The younger victim, an off-duty soldier, managed to shoot the terrorist, as did another member of the group, wounding him.
Mourners gather during the funeral of Eli Mizrahi and his wife, Natalie, who were victims of a shooting attack in East Jerusalem on January 27, 2023, in Bet Shemesh, Israel, January 28, 2023. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed “strong” and fast action on January 28 following two attacks in annexed East Jerusalem by Palestinians, one of which killed seven people outside a synagogue. (MENAHEM KAHANA/AFP via Getty)
Both terrorists were from neighborhoods in East Jerusalem, and as such have Israeli residency permits that give them access to Israeli social security benefits, including healthcare, welfare and unemployment payments and a range of other services.
A number of terrorists who carried out the attacks over the past year, which have left more than 30 Israelis dead, are Arab-Israelis with full Israeli citizenship. Such a move would result in Israel stripping them of their rights.
Netanyahu called for arming more emergency workers, who are often among the first people on the scene of a terrorist attack.
“Imagine if they … were armed,” he said, noting that history has shown “time and time again that heroic, armed and trained civilians save lives.”
