Israeli police detained at least 27 undocumented Palestinians in Tel Aviv over the weekend amid an ongoing crackdown on Palestinian movement in the wake of a deadly gun attack in Tel Aviv last week.
Israeli police spokesperson Luba al-Samri said in a statement that 27 Palestinians from the occupied West Bank districts of Hebron and Ramallah were detained near the Azrieli Center and Shaul HaMelech Avenue in central Tel Aviv for not having the legal permits to enter Israel.
For its part, A senior Hamas official has described the kidnapping and killing of three Jewish settlers two years ago in al-Khalil province as “an incident that has established a new juncture in the history of the Palestinian struggle against the occupation.”
In press remarks on the second anniversary of the incident, Abdul-Rahman Shadid stated that the 2014 operation in al-Khalil opened the doors wide open for the resistance to carry out more qualitative attacks against Israeli targets and individuals. Shadid said the resistance attacks and operations during the current intifada (uprising) bring to mind the heroic operation which challenged the Israeli security system in al-Khalil two years ago. He called on the resistance fighters in the West Bank to take what he described as precious lessons from all previous operations against the Israeli occupation in order to deal more painful strikes to the enemy until it decides to leave the Palestinian land.
Meanwhile on Friday, Israeli police detained 12 undocumented Palestinian workers on two construction sites in Petah Tikva in central Israel. The owners of the construction sites were also detained for interrogation and ordered to pay a security deposit of 50,000 shekels (approximately $12,939) to “ensure” they would not hire undocumented workers in the future.
The detentions came in the wake of a shooting attack in Tel Aviv last week that left four Israelis dead, after which Israel has imposed severe punitive measures across the occupied Palestinian territory in what the UN said could amount to collective punishment.
Israeli authorities revoked 83,000 permits for Palestinians residing the occupied West Bank to visit Jerusalem and Israel for the holy month of Ramadan and suspended all agreements allowing Palestinians from the besieged Gaza Strip to travel to East Jerusalem to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Meanwhile, Israeli authorities have imposed a massive crackdown on undocumented workers in Israel, which initially surged followed a deadly attack in the Israeli port of Jaffa in March carried out by a Palestinian who had illegally crossed the border out of the occupied West Bank.
The Jaffa attack on March 8, a day of multiple incidents in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem that also left three Palestinians dead and a dozen wounded, marked a peak in a wave of unrest that began in October, during which more than 200 Palestinians and some 30 Israelis have been killed.
The violence saw a drastic drop in the following months in terms of loss of Israeli life, though a number of Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces between March and June.
