Liberman pledges response to Tel Aviv terror attack as Palestinian travel permits rescinded
JERUSALEM (JTA) — The Israeli government’s security Cabinet met Thursday to discuss the previous evening’s terror attack at a popular central Tel Aviv site that left four dead.
Earlier Thursday, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman visited the Sarona Market, the site of the shootings by two Palestinian assailants, and asserted that Israel would respond.
“I don’t plan on detailing the steps we’ll be taking, but I certainly have no intentions of settling for lip service,” said Liberman, who assumed the post late last month.
Liberman also said he had come to “salute Tel Aviv residents who have again had to suffer a terrible event like this, a serious terror attack, and despite this they are able to return to everyday life and prove that life is stronger than terror.”
In the hours following the attack, the Defense Ministry rescinded all of the tens of thousands of permits given to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that would have permitted them to visit family in Israel or the Old City of Jerusalem and pray at the Al-Aqsa mosque in honor of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan. Some 83,000 such permits were canceled, the Defense Ministry’s coordinator for government activities in the territories told the Israeli media. The ministry also froze hundreds of work permits allowing Palestinians to work in Israel.
Four people were killed and three were seriously injured in the shooting at the outdoor shopping and entertainment center in Tel Aviv; 13 others were less seriously injured. One of the two gunmen was shot and killed at the scene. The other remains in serious condition in the same Tel Aviv hospital as the victims.
The attackers were 21-year-old cousins from the Palestinian town of Yatta in the Hebron Hills in the southern West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces imposed a closure on the town.
The victims were identified on Thursday morning: Ido Ben Ari, 42, of Ramat Gan; Ilana Naveh, 39, of Tel Aviv; Mila Mishayev, 32, of Rishon Lezion, and Michael Feige, 58, of Midreshet Beersheba. Feige, a professor of sociology at Ben-Gurion University, had written several articles against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians.
“We have no Iron Dome against terror attacks like these,” Israeli President Reuven Rivlin said Thursday morning. “The struggle against terrorism is difficult and long, but the State of Israel will not be disheartened. There will be no resurgence of terror, and we will relentlessly pursue the perpetrators.”
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