JERUSALEM (JTA) — Israeli police have been ordered to "strengthen Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem," an Israeli newspaper reported.
Ha’aretz reported Tuesday that Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch, in a document on his ministry’s policies for the next year, wrote that police need to increase their presence and activity in eastern Jerusalem to "increase law enforcement and improve police services there, part of a wider move to strengthen Israeli sovereignty over East Jerusalem."
A general police policy prevents Palestinian Authority activity in the area, a provision of the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Aharonovitch also called for more police presence in non-Jewish towns in other parts of Israel "to increase the feeling of identification with the state and its symbols of authority, and to increase state sovereignty in those areas," according to Ha’aretz.
He also called on the police to improve relations with non-Jewish Israelis and to encourage them to join the civil guard.
