The March 29 shooting spree in the suburban Tel Aviv town of Bnei Brak was the clincher. There is no longer any doubt that Israel is in the throes of a wave of terrorism, as articulated by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, the deadliest it has experienced in seven years. Within one week, 11 people (nine Israelis and two foreign nationals) were murdered on the streets of three Israeli towns: Beersheba, Hadera and Bnei Brak.
Unlike the attacks in Beersheba March 22 and Hadera March 27 carried out by Israeli Arab citizens affiliated with the Islamic State organization, the Bnei Brak shooter was a Palestinian from the northern West Bank village of Yabd. Perhaps inspired by the two previous assaults, he is believed to have entered Israel through one of the many breaches in the security fence with the West Bank. He seems to have chosen Bnei Brak because he was familiar with the area, having worked there illegally on a construction site.
Israeli security agencies are looking now into the failure of anticipating and preventing these attacks. Some security experts pointed out that the Shin Bet is bound by legal restrictions on monitoring Israeli citizens, such as the two Arabs who carried out the Beersheba and Hadera attacks. On the other hand, they argue that the Shin Bet has no such excuse for not preventing the Bnei Brak attack. Palestinians enjoy fewer legal rights than Israeli citizens, and the assailant was known to authorities and had spent time in an Israeli jail for security offenses.
Immediately after the Bnei Brak attack, army Chief Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi ordered the deployment of four additional battalions in the West Bank to beef up the four already deployed there in recent days. On March 30, he sent in an additional four battalions, bringing the total of additional forces to an unprecedented 12. Several hours after the Bnei Brak killings, Israeli security forces were already conducting a raid on the assailant’s village, detaining suspected collaborators and mapping out his family home ahead of its punitive destruction.
AL-MONITOR All-Access gives you unlimited access to all our journalism, the full Daily Briefing, exclusive interviews, premium newsletters, and live events — for less than $2/week.
