Some 10,000 police officers will be deployed throughout Jerusalem and the highways leading to it later this week, as 47 delegations of kings, presidents, and other world leaders visit Israel to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp, police said Sunday.
According to the head of police operations, Commander Yishai Shalem, the coming week’s 5th World Holocaust Forum at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum is expected to be one of the largest and most complex security operations ever for the Israel Police.
The event is similar in scope to only three other events in the country’s history, in which several world leaders or high-ranking dignitaries came to Israel: the funerals of Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres and the annual Presidential Conference, which Peres envisioned as a “Jewish Davos,” and which ran from 2009 to 2013.
“Things will need to run like a Swiss watch,” Shalem said.
The security effort — dubbed “Operation Future” — will be led by the police, with assistance from the Shin Bet security service’s Unit 730, which is responsible for protecting high-status officials. The Israel Defense Forces will also offer protection for world leaders visiting the West Bank, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and the UK’s Prince Charles, who are both slated to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
Shalem said the police did not have advanced intelligence indicating that large-scale demonstrations, riots or other disruptions were expected during the state visits, but were taking the necessary precautions in case such events occurred.
According to Israel’s Channel 13 news, warnings were sent to the Hamas terror group in the Gaza Strip that Israel would respond forcefully to any effort to disrupt the gathering, amid an uptick in border tensions in recent days.
Police were initially concerned that some people may protest against Putin’s visit over Russia’s imprisonment of American-Israeli Naama Issachar, though recent reports of a potential breakthrough in negotiations to secure her release may result in smaller demonstrations, if they take place at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment