Escalation Israelis and Palestinians, immersed in an increasingly dangerous spiral
If 20 years ago Israelis and Palestinians came to
Aqaba
to agree on a Roadmap towards the peace agreement, this Sunday they did so to avoid a new escalation in a security summit unprecedented in the last decade.
A less ambitious but critical objective given the spiral of violence in the last 11 months that has had a new chapter today with the death of two Israelis in a Palestinian armed attack in the northern West Bank and the violent retaliation by Israeli settlers against Palestinians
in
that zone.
Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian, Egyptian and American representatives met in
Jordan
on the need to reduce tension and refrain from potentially explosive unilateral measures.
The meeting in Aqaba - called as an emergency under pressure and at the direction of the
United States
and which will have a second part in
Sharm El Sheikh
in March - concluded with an agreement to de-escalate the situation in view of the start of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan, in a month, which coincides once again with the
Jewish Passover.
An always sensitive date but this year even more after the death of 61 Palestinians (mostly militants, perpetrators of attacks or participants in riots) and 13 Israelis (12 civilians and one police officer) in the last two months.
A joint commission will study the resumption of security cooperation between the
Palestinian National Authority (PNA)
and
Israel
and further action by Palestinian security forces to reduce Israeli incursions against militias in the West Bank.
The US has confirmed that the agreement includes the "Israeli commitment not to deal with the construction of new housing units in the settlements in the next four months and to stop the authorization of
outposts
(illegal or non-regularized enclaves) for six months."
Faced with criticism from two of his main government partners, the ultranationalists
Bezalel Smotrish
and
Itamar ben Gvir,
the Israeli prime minister
Benjamin Netanyahu,
has clarified tonight that the "construction and regularization in
Judea
and
Samaria
will continue according to the original planning and construction without change or freezing."
Various sources confirm, however, that it maintains the commitment given to the
Biden Administration
not to take further measures in this field beyond the approval of 9,500 new houses and the regularization of 9 old illegal enclaves in the West Bank, announced two weeks ago in response several Palestinian attacks in
Jerusalem.
The veteran prime minister supports the measures recommended by the Israeli security organizations to reduce tension with the Palestinians but for the first time in his long political career he depends on two ultranationalist parties (opposed to any cessation of construction in the colonies) to continue in the power.
Faced with Palestinian criticism, including within
Abu Mazen's Al Fatah,
for participating in the meeting with Israel that the Islamist group Hamas defined as a "peak of shame" and a "rupture of the Palestinian national consensus", the ANP affirms that the The objective was to uproot the Israeli commitment to cease its military incursions and its activity in the colonies in the territory occupied in the war of 1967.
On behalf of the PNA, the head of the Intelligence services,
Majed Faraj,
the general secretary of the
PLO executive committee, Hussein Al Sheikh,
and the diplomatic adviser to President Abu Mazen,
Majdi al Jaldi, participated.
Israel, for its part, was represented by the national security adviser,
Tsaji Hanegbi,
the head of the internal secret service,
Ronen Bar
and the director general of the Foreign Ministry,
Ronen Levy.
"The two parties affirmed their commitment to all previous agreements between them and to working for a just and lasting peace. They reaffirmed the need to commit to de-escalation on the ground and prevent further violence," reads one of the points in the final statement of the top.
On the ground, however, there is no trace of calm.
At noon, a Palestinian killed two Israelis on a road in the northern West Bank.
After firing twelve rounds at close range in his car, he fled.
The two Jewish victims -Yagel (19) and Halel Yaniv (21)- were brothers and inhabitants of the Har Braja colony, about 8 kilometers away.
Hawara, the site of the attack and whose crossing is widely used by Israelis and Palestinians, is located south of Nablus where eight militants and three Palestinian civilians died last Wednesday in a raid carried out by Israeli soldiers that led to armed clashes with members of Islamic
Jihad
and
Lions Den.
"No matter how great the pain that fills
Nablus,
the occupation will suffer twice as much," warned this Palestinian militia created a few months ago, promising revenge for the death of six of their own during the incursion.
After the attack, young settlers sought revenge and found it in the aforementioned Palestinian town of Hawara and set dozens of Palestinian houses, shops and cars on fire.
According to the PNA Health Ministry, a Palestinian was killed by Israeli fire in the clashes while dozens were injured.
The Israeli army, which rescued several Palestinian families from burned-out houses after failing to prevent the more-than-anticipated retaliation by radical hooligans, sent reinforcements to de-escalate the clashes and stop the Jewish attackers in Hawara and prevent further Palestinian attacks in retaliation for the reprisal.
Netanyahu asked in a video "not to take the law into his hands" and to let the forces act to arrest the perpetrator of the attack.
"I remind you that in recent weeks,
Isaac Herzog
condemned the attacks by his fellow citizens against Palestinians in response to the attack.
Hamas
applauded the armed attack, calling it a "response to Israel's crimes against the Palestinian people such as the massacre in Nablus."
In the Israeli government coalition, requests for a
"strong hand against Palestinian terror"
increased by ministers who were successful in the elections on November 1, among other reasons for their promises after the wave of Palestinian attacks in 2022 under the previous Executive made up of parties of the left, center, right and one Arab.
According to Israeli sources cited by the public broadcaster before the attack, as part of the agreements with the PNA in Aqaba, the Army will reduce its incursions into strongholds of Jihad and Hamas in the northern West Bank, limiting itself only to stopping the so-called "bombs about to explode". ", alluding to commandos suspected of planning attacks immediately.
Smotrish
demanded the "immediate" withdrawal of the delegation sent to the summit in Jordan.
"Calm will be obtained only when the
Tsáhal (Army)
hit terrorism without mercy," he said. Netanyahu kept the delegation at the summit but to calm the spirits of the most radical wing of his coalition, he allowed the approval in a ministerial committee of the proposal for the so-called "death penalty law for terrorists "This initiative, which still needs to be approved by the security cabinet and then by Parliament, does not have the support of the Government's legal adviser or the Israeli security organizations, considering that most of the perpetrators of the attacks they decide to carry them out knowing that they do not have much chance of surviving their attacks.That is, they warn, the death penalty will not serve to deter those who aspire to be a "martyr."
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