The Prime Minister’s Office and Jerusalem municipality have agreed on a joint plan to increase the sense of personal security for residents in the capital, it was announced Tuesday.
The plan, which comes in response to the recent murderous terrorist attacks in Jerusalem, includes reinforcing security and police units, concentrating intelligence and operational efforts, and improving civilian protection particularly at bus stops in the city, the PMO said in a communique.
As part of the plan, it was decided to immediately begin reinforcing 300 bus stops that are defined as high-priority and which are currently unprotected, with a designated budget to be allocated “immediately” for the Jerusalem municipality by the Prime Minister’s Office.
The municipality will also, in the next stage of the plan, continue reinforcing the remaining approximately 700 bus stops in the city with an additional designated budget to the city to be allocated by the PMO.
The Jerusalem Municipality and Mayor Moshe Leon thanked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the PMO staff “for their rapid response in finding a solution for the residents of the capital and their personal security,” the statement said.
“Pursuant to Security Cabinet decisions and additional actions that we have taken, we have decided to immediately reinforce hundreds of bus stops that are defined as high-priority in what is merely the first stage in reinforcing all bus stops in Jerusalem,” Netanyahu affirmed in his statement.
Leon thanked the prime minister and “the entire PMO team” for their rapid response and for “finding an immediate solution” to the issue of personal security for Jerusalem residents.
“The work to reinforce the bus stops in the city will begin immediately,” Leon added.
The news followed an announcement earlier in the day by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who wrote in a tweet that as part of the ‘Operation Concentrated Effort’ in eastern Jerusalem, “four boys were arrested for inciting and calling openly in front of media cameras for the murder of Jews.
“We will not allow incitement; we will not allow support for terrorism!” he wrote.
Israeli Arab Teens Openly Express Support for Murdering Israeli Jews
The arrests came the day after an interview conducted by an Arabic-speaking reporter from Israel’s Channel 11 KAN News public broadcaster, who spoke with Arab teens outside the Old City of Jerusalem to find out their views on attacks against Jews.
In that interview, an Arab teenager laughed about the recent deadly terror attack that left seven people dead outside a Neve Yaakov synagogue shortly after the start of the Sabbath. “It would have been better if he had killed more,” the teen said with a huge grin.
