Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this morning (Sunday) threatened the deputy leader of Hamas' political bureau and the head of its military wing in Judea and Samaria, Saleh al-Arouri.
"I heard the verbiage by the senior Hamas official Arouri, from his hiding place in Lebanon. He knows very well why he and his colleagues are in hiding," Netanyahu said at the beginning of the weekly cabinet meeting.
"Hamas, and the other Iranian proxies, understand very well that we will fight with all means against their attempts to use terrorism against us – in Judea and Samaria, Gaza and everywhere else. Whoever tries to hurt us, whoever finances and organizes, whoever dispatches terrorists against Israel – will pay the full price," he said.
"I would also like to appeal to the citizens of Israel: We are facing waves of terrorism, both internal and external. These are not simple times; these are challenging times. We need to unite our forces against terrorism, against the crime in the Arab sector, against the external and internal threats that is being organized, to a large extent, by Iran via its proxies. If we stand together, we will prevail. This is my call to all members of the Government, MKs, and all Israeli citizens," he said.
Netanyahu also addressed the issue of violence within Israel's Arab sector, which has seen 158 murders so far this year.
"I would like to send my best wishes for recovery to the Arab citizens of Israel who were wounded yesterday in the abhorrent attack in Kfar Kana. The Government of Israel is determined to fight the criminal organizations in the Arab sector. This is a national blight," he said.
"I would like to remind you that there was an additional blight – the criminal organizations in the Jewish sector. It took us years, do you remember these organizations? We eliminated most of them in a determined and systematic operation over time. We eliminated the majority of organized crime in the Jewish sector. This is what we intend to do in the Arab sector as well.
"We believe that all citizens of Israel, Jews and non-Jews, Jews and Arabs, deserve to live in security and certainly not under the reign of terror that most of our Arab citizens are currently living under.
"We will employ an iron fist, including the consideration of administrative restrictions and detentions in order to stop these terrible murders. This fight will not be simple but I am certain that with our joint forces, we will succeed in defeating this phenomenon and will certainly reduce it to the dimensions that we have achieved in the Jewish sector.
"I appeal to the Arab public. I appeal to the MKs, local council heads, and opinion-makers, and I tell them – stand together with the Government in the joint effort against the criminal organizations," Netanyahu said.