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It seems that the confrontations between Israel and militants on the Lebanese border and in the Palestinian territories have subsided yesterday, which calms the concern that it will be the beginning of a major escalation in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, amid international calls for calm and de-escalation.
Despite this, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered, yesterday, the mobilization of more army police reserves, after a run-over attack in Tel Aviv that killed one person and injured 5 others.
“The prime minister instructed the Israeli police to mobilize all reserve border police units, and ordered the Israeli army to mobilize additional forces to counter terrorist attacks,” a statement from Netanyahu’s office said. As a result of gunfire in the occupied West Bank, two Israeli sisters were killed and their mother was injured. Tarawih prayers passed by Al-Aqsa Mosque, where violence broke out between Israeli police and worshipers earlier in the week, without significant incidents.
Militants from Lebanon and Gaza fired a large number of rockets at northern and southern Israel yesterday, while the Israeli army launched air strikes. But neither side has shown a desire to prolong the fighting.
A spokesman for the Israeli army said: “No one wants an escalation at the present time. Calm will be answered by calm, at this stage I think, at least in the coming hours.”
China, Russia, Britain and Egypt called for calm and de-escalation, while encouraging a quick and appropriate settlement of the Palestinian issue. Yesterday, Friday prayers passed without incident at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem, which attracts hundreds of thousands of worshipers during the month of Ramadan, when Israel deployed large numbers of police forces.
Aside from some stone-throwing incidents, the police said the Al-Aqsa compound was quiet.
Earlier this week, the Israeli police raided the Al-Aqsa Mosque, beating Palestinian worshipers, arresting and expelling hundreds of people from the Temple Mount, in what it described as a raid to remove “provocateurs holed up in the mosque,” which sparked condemnations across the Arab world.
In yesterday’s attack in the West Bank, Israeli officials said two sisters were killed and their mother wounded when their car came under fire near the settlement of Hamra.
And included the attacks, yesterday, the largest missile attacks emanating from Lebanon since the 2006 war. And caused the attacks to disturb the Jewish Passover holiday, and pushed the population to shelters. At least one house was hit by a missile fired from Gaza.
Israel called on the United Nations Security Council to condemn Lebanon and the armed Palestinian factions for the rocket fire.
But before noon yesterday, the Israeli military said that residents near the Gaza border no longer needed to stay near shelters. Israeli air strikes targeted sites in Gaza and Lebanon early yesterday morning.
Loud explosions rocked different areas of the besieged coastal strip. Israel said its warplanes bombed 10 targets, including tunnels and weapons manufacturing sites.
The streets in Gaza were largely empty except for some taxis and emergency vehicles. Some homes and a children’s hospital were damaged in the Al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.
Even before the outbreak of clashes in the past few days, confrontations escalated in the West Bank over the past months, with almost daily military raids, increased settler violence, and a wave of attacks by Palestinians. Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that Moscow calls on Israel and Palestine to refrain from confrontational steps, and to return to the cease-fire regime. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the process of settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict requires a return to United Nations resolutions.
Yesterday, the official spokesman for the Egyptian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Ahmed Abu Zeid, expressed Egypt’s deep concern as a result of the accelerating and dangerous escalation that the region has been witnessing over the past 48 hours, and called on all parties to exercise maximum restraint, respond to efforts to calm down, stop bloodshed and protect spirits.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry quoted China’s special envoy to the Middle East, Zhai Jun, as saying yesterday that Beijing will continue to work hard to encourage a quick and appropriate settlement of the Palestinian issue.
When meeting with ambassadors from Middle Eastern countries in Beijing, the Special Envoy expressed China’s deep concern over the escalation of the conflict between Israel, the Palestinians and Lebanon, and called for utmost calm and restraint from all parties, especially Israel. Yesterday, France affirmed its “firm adherence to Israel’s security and Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty,” after the air strikes launched by Israel on both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, in response to the firing of missiles from them on its territory.
Deputy spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, Francois Delma, urged all parties to exercise maximum restraint.
Britain also called on all parties to de-escalate tensions, emphasizing the need to respect the historical status quo with regard to the holy sites in Jerusalem.
#Quiet #Israels #borders #Lebanon #Gaza