TEL AVIV – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted forcefully to the London terror attack, vowing to “fight this scourge” and “vanquish terror.”
Seven people were killed and 48 injured when a van drove into pedestrians on London Bridge before attackers armed with large knives began stabbing people in the nearby Borough Market.
“We send our condolences to the British people and we pledge our commitment to fight this scourge – this scourge that knows no bounds,” Netanyahu tweeted.
“These terrorists worship death. They murder indiscriminately, but they will not frighten us. They will not terrorize us,” he added in a follow up tweet, posted from the Liberian capital Monrovia where he is currently attending a summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).
“They will only harden our resolve to defeat them. Here in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, everywhere – together, we will defeat them faster,” Netanyahu wrote in a third tweet.
He concluded: “London Bridge will not fall. Together we will vanquish terror.”
Israel’s Ambassador the the UK Mark Regev echoed Netanyahu’s sentiment that terror would not triumph.
“Israel stands in solidarity with London: terror & hatred will never defeat us,” he tweeted.
MK Yehudah Glick cynically noted that the only “significant contribution by the Palestinians to the world is new methods of terror.”
British Prime Minister Theresa May, who is vying to keep her position come Thursday’s general election, pointed to Islamic fundamentalism in her condemnation of the attack.
May said that the terrorists were “bound together by the single evil ideology of Islamist extremism that preaches hatred, sows division and promotes sectarianism. It is an ideology that claims our Western values and freedom, democracy and human rights are incompatible with the religion of Islam.”
“We cannot and must not pretend that things can remain the same,” she added.