Israel is using “strong measures” against terrorism that it has not used in the past, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at Sunday's weekly cabinet meeting.
Among these measures, he said, are the cordoning off the Hebron region; denial of work permits for residents of Bani Na'im, the village near Hebron where six terrorists have come from; a massive deployment of IDF forces in the region, with a focus on securing the roads; and automatically investigating family members of the murderer of 13-year-old Hallel Yaffa Ariel in Kiryat Arba last week, and “arresting them in accordance with the level of their involvement.”
Netanyahu also said that he cabinet next week would discuss a program to strengthen Kiryat Arba. Netanyahu and Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman, in response to the Kiryat Arba attack, to market 42 new housing units in the neighborhood near the Ariel family's home.
Sunday's meeting was delayed some 90 minutes, because a special security cabinet meeting the night before lasted until after 2am. The decision Netanyahu spelled out to his ministers were decided there. It was also decided to subtract from the money Israel transfers to the PA every month the sum the PA pays to terrorist and their families.
A disagreement erupted in the cabinet between Education Minister Naftali Bennett and Liberman, with Liberman at one point reportedly telling IDF officers not to answer Bennett's questions.
Before the cabinet meeting, Construction Minister Yoav Gallant described the measures taken as 'localized” and “responsible.”
Gallant, a member of the security cabinet, said that Israel is in the midst of 100-year struggle with terrorism, “and I think we will know how to get to every one of the murderers and pull them from their beds and bring them either to prison or to the cemetery.”
Another security cabinet is scheduled for Sunday afternoon.