After pair of attacks, Israeli prime minister pledges ‘zero tolerance’ for

Following the predawn attack Friday on the Palestinian West Bank village of Duma, near Nablus, Rivlin said in a statement, “It seems we have been lax in our treatment of the phenomena of Jewish terrorism”. The same man had carried out a similar attack on a gay pride parade in 2005, and had angrily spoken out against the parade after his release from prison three weeks earlier.

Signs held at the weekend protests read: “Hate kills” and “Homophobia and racism are the same violence”.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met members of Israel’s left-wing Meretz Party on Sunday in the aftermath of the killing of an 18-month-old boy in an arson attack by suspected settlers, local media reported.

Administrative detention allows for arrests without charges and enables the incarceration of suspects for undefined periods of time without sufficient evidence to try them.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 5,442 Palestinians were in detention without trial as of June.

The security cabinet would seek to advance legislation that would fight terrorist acts of Jewish extremists and establish a ministerial committee to be headed by Defensce Minister Moshe Yaalon in order to come up with solutions to prevent such attacks from happening in the future.

“As always, each case of administrative detention will have to be approved by the courts, but by invoking this the minister is taking action consistent with his effort to exact the full measure of the law against these people”, a spokesman for Ya’alon told Reuters.

Tension has been running high at the flashpoint mosque complex following the murder last week of a Palestinian infant by suspected Jewish extremists. The prime minister has defined the firebombing as a terrorist attack, the official said. “Our policy toward such crimes is zero tolerance”.

At his weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Netanyahu said Israel was united against “the criminals among our people” following a pair of attacks that shocked the country.