An attack in Israel raises fears of the spread of violence due to the war in Gaza

Israel suffered an attack this Monday that shows the potential for the violence to spread due to the war in Gaza. Two Palestinian relatives from a West Bank village, one 44 years old and the other 25, have used up to three cars to carry out a pile-up in the city of Raanana, north of Tel Aviv, in which they have killed an elderly woman and injured another 19 people, four of them seriously. Eight of the injured are minors. The woman was stabbed to death after the vehicle she was in was stolen to start the attacks. According to Israeli public television, the attackers were sending messages with their cell phones to a Telegram group and in one they boasted of having “revenged.” They are both arrested.

The police consider it a terrorist attack, a day after the war in the Strip – which has left another 60 dead (more than 24,000 in total) in the last few hours – completed its symbolic 100 days with an uncertain end. Hamas has not claimed it, although it has applauded it as a “response to Israel's crimes.”

Despite not having caused multiple fatalities, it is the largest attack in Israel since November 30, when two young Palestinians got out of a car in front of a bus stop in Jerusalem and began to open fire. They killed three people, in an attack that Hamas claimed responsibility for and ended up generating a notable controversy because two soldiers shot dead the Israeli who had prevented the escape of the attackers when he was on his knees, unarmed and with his arms raised. They thought he was one of them.

Without permission

The attack may influence the fate of tens of thousands of Palestinians. For weeks, the Israeli Government has been considering allowing entry again to at least part of the tens of thousands of Palestinians who crossed every day to work in Israel or to the Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Despite these debates, the Executive always ends up postponing the vote due to disagreements between the ministers. Since the Hamas attack on October 7, their permits have been frozen, leaving a large number of households without resources overnight. These Palestinians make up 22% of the West Bank workforce.

Israeli construction businessmen (where most of them were employed) are pushing for their return. Also, although under stricter conditions, the intelligence services and the army, which see greater destabilizing potential in leaving so many people without income until further notice, in a territory where violence has escalated, than in reopening the doors of Israel to who until recently entered daily without incident.

The two attackers have been identified by security forces as residents of Bani Naim, a village near the West Bank city of Hebron, one of whose residents was killed in October by Israeli military fire and where incidents with Jewish settlers from Israel have multiplied. area.

The two Palestinians lacked a work permit or entry permit into the country because they were preemptively designated by the secret services. They had been working illegally for months in a car wash shop – whose owner, an Israeli Jew, has also been arrested and interrogated – in the area of ​​the attack. These types of irregular workers usually cross through gaps or open spaces in the separation wall, which are now much more closely monitored. Others spend the night secretly in Israel.

Despite not being in the category debated by the Israeli Government, the attack has strengthened the position of those who oppose unblocking the validity of work permits. Ofir Akunis, Minister of Innovation, Science and Technology, of the Likud party led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, considers it “a new demonstration that the return of West Bank workers to their jobs cannot be approved at this time.” . Along the same lines, the head of National Missions, the far-right Orit Struck, has focused on the fact that one of them was over 35 years old. It is the age at which limiting permits is being studied, because the majority of young people are usually below. “[El atentado de Raanana] it somewhat contradicts the criteria that they try to us sell”he said ironically on X, the social network formerly called Twitter.

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