Terrorist Attacks in Israel Kill 3 as Violence Worsens in Middle East

Three people were killed and six were injured in two terrorist attacks in Israel and the West Bank on Friday. The attacks occurred after Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Friday morning in response to Thursday’s rocket attack.

Summary

Three people were killed and six were injured in two terrorist attacks in Israel and the West Bank on Friday. The attacks occurred after Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Friday morning in response to Thursday’s rocket attack.

• Two British-Israeli sisters, Maia Dee, 20, and Rina Dee, 15, were shot and killed in the West Bank on Friday. The sisters were killed and their mother, Lucianne, 45, was severely injured after gunmen ambushed their vehicle and opened fire while they traveled in the Jordan valley.
• Later Friday, an Arab-Israeli man drove his car into pedestrians walking on a seaside promenade in Tel Aviv. The ramming attack killed one Italian tourist and injured seven others.
• On Thursday, 34 rockets were fired into Israel from southern Lebanon, the heaviest since 2006. The barrage was accompanied by scores of rocket launches from Gaza.
• The rocket strikes from Lebanon “reflected a growing partnership between Hezbollah and Hamas, the hard-line Palestinian militia that the Israeli military accused of orchestrating the rocket strikes, likely with Hezbollah’s blessing,” reported the New York Times.
• The Israeli military fired back on Friday, targeting Hamas sites in Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. The Israeli military said they hit ten targets including weapons sites and tunnels.
• Saturday did not bring any new attacks, but the situation in Israel appears to be getting worse, not better.

• The rocket strikes from Lebanon “reflected a growing partnership between Hezbollah and Hamas, the hard-line Palestinian militia that the Israeli military accused of orchestrating the rocket strikes, likely with Hezbollah’s blessing,” reported the New York Times.
• The man killed in the car-ramming attack was a 30-year-old Italian citizen. Prime Minister of Italy Giorgia Meloni shared “deep condolences for the death of one of our compatriots, Alessandro Parini, in the terrorist attack that took place in the evening in Tel Aviv,” according to CNN. In a tweet, the right-wing leader condemned the “cowardly attack that hit him.”
• The Guardian’s Martin Chulov wrote “the real reason for such a heavy barrage of rockets was in Syria, where Israeli jets had three times in the past week attacked airbases believed to be housing parts of a drone programme sponsored by Iran but run by Hezbollah. On the Syrian border with Iraq, Israeli jets had frequently attacked elements of what its military leaders see as an even bigger threat – the transfer of components to convert rockets into precision-guided missiles that could wreak unprecedented havoc inside Israel.”

• The United States has deployed a guided-missile submarine to the Middle East in a “show of force” in response to recent rocket attacks on U.S. forces from Iran-directed militias in the region, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Breitbart reported the car-ramming attacker, Kafr Qassem, flipped his car and was shot dead by Israeli police. Breitbart linked to footage apparently showing officers shooting at the attacker.
• Fox News covered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s response to the attacks. The prime minister plans to call up Israel’s reserve forces in the border police to “confront the terror attacks” and stop the violence.

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© Dominic Moore, 2023