Netanyahu: It’s impossible to hermetically seal border
The prime minister spoke Tuesday after visiting the Yavne supermarket stabbing victim in the hospital.
By HERB KEINONUpdated: AUGUST 9, 2017 04:21Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Niv Nehemiah yesterday at Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot. Nehemiah was stabbed last week by a terrorist at a supermarket in Yavne.(photo credit: KOBI GIDEON/GPO)
It is not possible to hermetically seal the country’s boundaries, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday after touring the security barrier in the South with the security cabinet and then visiting Niv Nehemiah in the hospital.Nehemiah was stabbed in the neck, head and chest some 15 times last week at a supermarket in Yavne by Ibrahim Ismail Abu Aram, 19, from the West Bank village of Yatta, who slipped across the Green Line in the South Hebron Hills near where Netanyahu toured on Tuesday.Nehemiah, 42 and the father of five, was taken to Kaplan Medical Center in Rehovot in critical condition, but his situation has since improved and he regained consciousness two days ago.After visiting Nehemiah, Netanyahu said he toured the area near where the terrorist crossed the Green Line, saying that Israel had already placed a number of obstacles there, including some that he would not detail.But, Netanyahu said, “one thing is for sure, there will never be a hermetically sealed border. In the final analysis, the true response is our courage and the willingness to fight these murderers and those who send them.”Netanyahu said that Nehemiah demonstrated that courage by fending off and stopping with his bare hands a “hate-filled terrorist armed with a knife.” The premier said Nehemiah prevented “a great tragedy.”Netanyahu said that the country prayed that Nehemiah would emerge from his life-threatening condition, and that according to what he saw in the hospital, “the prayers were answered and he will indeed come out of this.”“I saw him with his family, and it simply warms the heart,” Netanyahu said.Amid the constant drumbeat of news about police investigations and his former chief of staff Ari Harow who turned state’s witness over the weekend, Netanyahu placed an 83-second video of his tour on his Facebook page, including shots of him in the army helicopter flying near the barrier.Alongside the video, he wrote: “Today with the security cabinet on a tour of the security fence in the South Hebron Hills. My primary mission is to preserve Israel’s security and ensure its future.”
