Netanyahu and ministers evacuated during cabinet meeting because of suspicious vehicle

Israeli security forces evacuated on Monday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, along with several key ministers in his cabinet, after a suspicious
vehicle parked nearby on the street, before the situation returned to normal, Anadolu news agency reported.

According to the news agency, Israeli Channel Two television reported that, “Netanyahu was evacuated, together with Finance Minister Yair Lapid, Housing Minister Uri Ariel, Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver and Environmental Protection Minister Amir Peretz, from the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem to a nearby building, after a suspicious vehicle was parked on the street in front of his office.”

Citing anonymous sources, the channel reported that the ministers were
discussing possible solutions to the housing shortage when security chiefs broke into the session and asked them all to leave the meeting room and go
to a nearby building. The Israeli security officials reportedly feared that the vehicle could have a car bomb.

The Prime Minister’s office later issued a statement saying that: “Following the discovery of a suspicious car in the area surrounding the Prime Minister’s
office, everyone in the building – including the Prime Minister, was evacuated to a part of the building far away from the suspicious vehicle.” Since July, occupied Jerusalem has witnessed an escalation in tensions between Palestinians and Israeli occupation forces in the wake of the kidnapping and murder of a Palestinian boy, Mohammed Abu Khudair, by Israeli settlers.

Last Wednesday, the Israeli authorities claimed that a young Palestinian man shot right wing Rabbi Yehuda Glick in the old city of Jerusalem, leaving him seriously injured, before the Palestinian was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces the following day.