Gantz says ‘Israel will step up operations in the West Bank’
'We will deploy more forces and more measures... Where terror is not fought, we will fight it'
Israel will step up counterterrorism efforts in the West Bank and elsewhere, the Jewish state’s Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Thursday, without making any connection to a foiled terrorist attack on the same day.
“We will deploy more forces and more measures, strengthen cooperation between defense agencies, and accelerate the construction of the separation barrier in the West Bank,” Gantz said at a military ceremony.
Earlier on Thursday, a Palestinian man from the West Bank city of Nablus, carrying pipe bombs and a gun, was arrested in Jaffa, southern Tel Aviv. He confessed to planning to carry out an attack.
Israeli forces subsequently set up checkpoints in the West Bank as part of a search for other suspects who were thought to be involved in the foiled attack, police told Army Radio.
“In the past week alone, we have prevented a number of attempts to harm Israelis,” Gantz continued.
"Where terror is not fought, we will fight it," assured the minister, apparently referring to the Palestinian Authority's lack of urgency to fight extremism and arms trafficking in the West Bank.
Earlier this week, Gaza’s extremist factions Hamas and Islamic Jihad called on Palestinians to step up "resistance" attacks against soldiers and Israelis in the West Bank, amid Israeli army operations in the region.
Since launching its counterterrorism Operation “Breakwater,” Israel has arrested more than 1,500 Palestinians in almost daily raids in the West Bank in response to a string of deadly attacks on Israelis earlier this year.