Israel defence minister orders military to 'intensify operations' in West Bank after bus blasts

FRANCE 24 English

Visit our website: http://www.france24.com  Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English  Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/France24_en

Transcript

00:00News just coming in to us. Police in Israel are treating the incident as a suspected terror

00:05attack after explosions rocked several buses in Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv. Security services say

00:12two bombs exploded, three others are being defused and there are no immediate reports

00:18of casualties. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is meanwhile being briefed by his

00:24military secretary. He's then to hold a security situation assessment. For the very latest,

00:30let's cross live now to our correspondent in Israel, Noga Tarnopolsky is standing by for us.

00:37Noga, what is it exactly that we know about what's happened there at this stage? Police

00:41are still at the scene. What's happening? Yes, absolutely. It's a story that is still underway.

00:48We just heard from the Israeli defense minister who said that he has ordered the army to step

00:55up operations in the West Bank. It's worth remembering that Israel started major operations

01:03in the West Bank town of Jenin and then in adjacent towns a month ago tomorrow, exactly

01:10one month ago. And there was a strange statement made by the so-called Tulkarem Brigade of Hamas

01:19just a few moments ago. It didn't take responsibility for these attempted bombings

01:28of five buses, but it did welcome this effort. And so the suspicions right now are that there

01:37might be a connection that possibly a Hamas cell in the West Bank was trying to somehow

01:43mark one month since the start of the IDF operation in the West Bank. And we also found

01:49out that this not only represents obviously a failure of Israeli intelligence, but that the

01:57fact that no one was hurt is just dumb luck. A timer on two of the bombs went off at the wrong

02:07time. Apparently these bombs were put in the buses in the hope of the buses blowing up tomorrow,

02:14Friday morning, the beginning of the weekend in Israel and hundreds of people could have been

02:19killed. Now, it's obviously a very worrying development for people there in Israel. Also

02:25concerning when it comes to the already very fragile ceasefire in place in Gaza. It might be

02:31too early to say at this stage, but what kind of consequences could this development have

02:37for the truce in Gaza? It's hard to say because if Israel does in fact expand its military

02:46operations in the West Bank, we don't know exactly what that could provoke or how that could spread.

02:53And obviously it goes without saying that this organized effort to conduct a massive,

03:00multi-site terror attack in Israel at the start of the weekend is without question an escalation

03:08and is going, I'm almost certain that Israel will consider this a grave breach of Hamas's

03:16part of the ceasefire agreement in Gaza, since it appears to be Hamas linked. We have to wait

03:22a few hours to know that for sure. But this could even cause, for example, breaking off

03:28the talks on phase two of the ceasefire, which have just started again today. I also want to

03:36mention something that's just come through. Israel is heightening security on all trains

03:41and at the Ben Gurion International Airport. Apparently there's a very wide ranging search

03:47underway right now. No, we'll leave it there for now. Thank you so much for that. That's

03:51our correspondent in Israel, Noga Tanepolsky, joining us after several.

Category

Transcript

Recommended