(Jerusalem) The Israeli security cabinet announced on the night of Saturday to Sunday measures depriving “terrorist families” of certain rights, after two attacks in East Jerusalem, one of which killed seven people on Friday evening.
Meeting urgently on Saturday evening after these attacks, the restricted cabinet “arrested a series of measures to […] make terrorists and those who support them pay,” according to an official statement.
The text announces the revocation of the rights to Social Security of “families of terrorists who support terrorism” as well as the discussion on Sunday in the Council of Ministers of a bill aimed at revoking “the Israeli identity cards” of this same category of families.
At the opening of the restricted cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had promised a “strong” and “rapid” response to the Palestinian attacks of the past two days.
The measures announced are in line with the proposals of his far-right political partners which enabled him to return to power at the end of December, following the legislative elections of the previous month.
They are likely to apply in the first place to Palestinians with Israeli nationality (Israeli Arabs, according to the Israeli name) and Palestinians with the status of residents of East Jerusalem (part of the Holy City occupied and annexed by Israel) giving them a number of rights and obligations identical to those of Israelis.
Deploring the scenes of jubilation that greeted in several Palestinian cities the announcement of the killing committed Friday evening by a Palestinian who shot dead seven people near a synagogue in a Jewish settlement neighborhood in East Jerusalem, the security cabinet is also agreed on “measures to strengthen the colonies which will be submitted this week”, adds the press release without further details.
Jewish colonization in the West Bank is considered illegal by the UN, which continues to call in vain for its cessation.