JNS
"That we eliminated these two terrorists is not enough," said the premier of the perpetrators of the deadly Jerusalem terror attack.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed on Monday night to pursue all those responsible for the murder of six people in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem earlier in the day.
"That we eliminated these two terrorists is not enough. That we will go after their supporters and accomplices is also not enough," Netanyahu declared during a visit to the Israeli Air Force command center in Tel Aviv.
"My directive is to forcefully go after the nests of terrorism," he stated.
The premier noted that the Israel Defense Forces had already "eliminated the nests of terror in three refugee camps" as part of "Operation Iron Wall" that has been ongoing in northern Samaria since late January.
"We simply evacuated the population from there and flattened all terrorist infrastructure, and my directive is to do this in additional terrorist nests" said the prime minister.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said in a separate statement on Monday evening that he had ordered "a full closure of the area from which the terrorists came," vowing to "continue with a determined and ongoing operational and intelligence effort" to "pursue terrorist cells everywhere," and "thwart terrorist infrastructure and its organizers."
Defense Minister Israel Katz on Tuesday morning announced a series of sanctions against the terrorists' families and their villages. The measures include the demolition of all illegal structures in the villages and the revocation of 750 permits to enter the Jewish state's pre-1967 lines.
Katz decided on the civilian sanctions following a recommendation by Maj. Gen. Ghassan Alian, head of the Defense Ministry's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) unit, Ynet reported.
The IDF announced on Tuesday morning that it had expanded counter-terrorism operations across Judea and Samaria in the wake of the attack.
Forces continued wide-scale searches in the area, questioning suspects and scanning multiple locations, the IDF stated.
Troops of the military's Binyamin Brigade operated in the Palestinian villages of Qatanna and Al-Qubeiba to map the homes of Mohammad Taha and Muthanna Amro, who carried out Monday's attack, ahead of their possible demolition, the statement added.
Six people were murdered and a dozen more wounded in a shooting in the northern Jerusalem neighborhood of Ramot on Monday morning.
Terrorists Taha and Amro were killed at the scene by an Israel Defense Forces soldier and an armed civilian.
The Gaza-based Hamas terrorist group released a statement praising the "heroic operation" carried out by "two Palestinian resistance fighters," calling the attack "a natural response to the occupation’s crimes."
The statement called on Palestinians across Judea and Samaria to "escalate the confrontation with the occupation and its settlers."
