Israeli PM vows to further toughen measures against Palestinian stone throwers

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that measures against Palestinian stone-throwers will be further toughened, after new rules allowing live sniper fire against them were employed by the police over the weekend.

"Over the weekend, security forces have used the new measures and struck the stone-throwers and Molotov cocktail-throwers," Netanyahu said at the start of his weekly cabinet meeting. He did not elaborate on specific incidents in which snipers fired live bullets against stone-throwers.

"Today we will approve a further expansion of the police's ability to act against the throwing of stones and Molotov cocktails," he added.

Netanyahu also said that his government is pushing forward a new legislation to impose heavier fines on parents of stone-thrower youths.

In a remark directed at the courts, Netanyahu said he also supports the setting minimum sentences against stone-throwers. "We seek to instill in all the citizens of Israel and all the judges of Israel" a norm of maximum penalties, he said.

The moves came amidst escalating clashes between Israeli police and Palestinians in Jerusalem, including an increasing number of stone and firebomb attacks on Israeli cars in the city.

The clashes were triggered by a struggle over visiting rights to the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount compound in East Jerusalem, a holy site to both Muslims and Jews.

Israeli media reported on Thursday that Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein approved a new procedure allowing police to shoot live 0.22 caliber bullets at Palestinian stone-throwers in Jerusalem.

The decision was made after an incident in which a 64-year-old Jerusalem resident, Alexander Levlovitch, was killed in a suspected stone-throwing attack at his car.

Up until now, police officers were only allowed to use less lethal rubber-coated bullets to disperse protests.

Israeli human rights watchdog B'Tselem said Thursday that based on experience gained over recent years in the West Bank, the group expects that the approval for this move "would not have the result desired by the government and rather than 'restore order' to Jerusalem, it would exacerbate the cycle of violence with lethal results."

According to the group, since the beginning of the year, dozens of Palestinians have been injured by live fire during clashes with Israeli forces, some of them sustained very serious injuries.

Twenty Palestinians were killed by security forces, many of them during stone-throwing incidents in which members of the security forces were not in mortal danger, figures by B'Tselem show.

Israel occupied east Jerusalem in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed the Palestinian villages, where 300,000 Palestinians live, in 1981, in a move considered illegal by many in the international community. Endit