JERUSALEM -- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday ordered the mobilization of close to 2,000 border police reservists in anticipation of a major surge of unrest.
The border police constitute the front line force in situations of quasi-terror and mass confrontations such as has prevailed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem for the past two weeks. A spokesman for the prime minister said the mobilization of 13 companies, in addition to three mobilized last week, was a "primary preventive and deterrent measure." The need for increased security was demonstrated Sunday evening when a 20-year-old Israeli Arab stabbed four people at a bus stop in northern Israel, seriously injuring a young woman, before being seized by civilians and police.
Although Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for a halt to violence, support for the 80-year-old leader among Palestinians is rapidly waning. Palestinian security forces are still nominally loyal but they are increasingly evading their hitherto effective role as buffer between Palestinian "street" violence and Israelis. "The absence of Palestinian security forces has been conspicuous during the past few days in clashes in Bethlehem, Tulkarm and Ramallah," wrote Avi Issacharoff, who monitors Palestinian affairs for the Times of Israel.
Although the Palestinians have largely refrained from using weapons in the current confrontation, gunmen from Ramallah did open fire at an Israeli command post near the Palestinian city three days ago. Palestinian security forces called on them to desist, which they did, but this level of influence is expected inIsrael to give way soon, opening the way for direct confrontation between Israeli troops and armed Palestinians.
Clashes have already spiraled between troops and masses of Palestinian demonstrators, throwing rocks and firebombs, and occasionally firing shots. The Palestinian Red Crescent on Sunday reported at least 70 Palestinian casualties in such clashes with troops throughout the West Bank, many of them from rubber bullets and even live fire.
The Gaza Strip’s border with Israel has seen some of the most intense confrontations in recent days even though there are no Israelis inside the Gaza Strip itself. Masses of Gaza residents, most of them youths, managed to cut through an Israeli border fence, with some 70 crossing into Israeli territory Saturdaynight. Paratroopers drove them back, except for five who were taken into custody. Nine Gazans have been killed and about 60 wounded in such border clashes in the past three days.
Following the firing of a rocket from Gaza into Israel Saturday, an Israeli military spokesman said that the air force bombed two Hamas weapons manufacturing sites in the strip at 3 A.M. Sunday. A Gaza Health Ministry official said that a pregnant woman and her two-year-old daughter died when their house collapsed after the nearby explosions.
At an approach road to Jerusalem, a policeman Sunday morning flagged down a car driving in a bus lane. As he approached the vehicle on foot, the driver, a Palestinian woman from Jericho, shouted "Allah Akhbar" and detonated and explosive device. She survived in serious condition and the policeman suffered slight face burns.
There have been numerous reports of Jews beating up Palestinians inside Israel in revenge attacks. Police have arrested a number of Jews allegedly involved in these incidents. In the coastal city of Netanya, a resident, Maimon Haimi, told Channel 10 News that he had run towards a group shouting "terrorist" when he saw someone running towards him and tackled him. As he did so, he noticed that the young man was unarmed and bleeding and was being pursued by Jews. Haimi then lay across his prey to protect him from his pursuers. "I was there to catch a terrorist, or perhaps kill him. When I saw he wasn’t a terrorist, I changed my mind." In shielding Abed al-Kader Jamal, said Haimi, he was not only protecting the Palestinian but "protecting the Jews (pursuing him) from themselves."