PM calls urgent meeting on settler attack on IDF base
By JPOST.COM STAFF
LAST UPDATED: 12/13/2011 12:24
Netanyahu meets with senior security officials after 50 settlers attack IDF base in W. Bank; Vilna'i: Attackers are "Jewish terrorists"; Barak orders IDF to devote full resources to preventing attacks.
![Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu [file]](../HttpHandlers/ShowImage.ashx?ID=181022 "Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu [file]")
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu [file] Photo: REUTERS/Uriel Sinai/Pool
Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu on Tuesday convened an emergency meeting with senior security
officials in his office following an attack by some 50 settlers
on an army base in the West Bank. Among those attending were Defense
Minister Ehud Barak, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, OC
Central Command Maj.-Gen. Avi Mizrahi, Police Commissioner Insp.-Gen.
Yochanan Danino and Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch.
Earlier Tuesday Netanyahu ordered security forces to "act aggressively" against anyone who attacks IDF soldiers, saying, "This
incident deserves all condemnation," the Prime Minister's Office said.
"The security forces need to concentrate on defending our citizens and
not on these abhorrent acts."
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The activists burned tires, spread
nails on the roads, vandalized cars and threw rocks at the jeep of a
senior officer, brigade commander Col.
Ran Kahane. The incident, the latest in a series of attacks by settlers and right-wing activists against
Palestinians and the IDF, came just hours after security forces evacuated about 20 activists
from an abandoned building they had raided along Israel's border with
Jordan. Settlers call the attacks "price tag" attacks, as they tend to
come in reaction to the evacuation or threatened evacuation of illegal
outposts.
Defense Minister Ehud
Barak ordered the IDF to use all of the resources at its disposal to
prevent further “price tag” attacks and to capture the perpetrators of
Tuesday’s morning’s attack.
Of the earlier border fence attack, Barak said: “These actions are dangerous and also threaten the delicate ties between
Israel and its neighbors."
Yesha Council Charmian Danny Dayan called Col.
Kahane Tuesday morning to denounce the incident. "As the head of the
Yesha council, and no less as a resident of the zone you command, I know
well what important work you and the commanders and soldiers in your
division every day and every night for it protection," Dayan said,
calling the perpetrators "shameful and ungrateful."
"The perpetrators must turn themselves in, and otherwise they should be arrested and brought to justice," he added.
"These are criminals, Jewish terrorists who are harming the security of
Israel," Homeland Security Minister Matan Vilnai said.