National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir vowed to press on with an ongoing days-long police raid in the Bedouin town of Tarabin al-Sana on Wednesday, during his third visit to the village within a week.

“We are continuing, without blinking, in order to subdue these criminals,” he said in an address to reporters near the town’s entrance, cordoned off by cinderblocks.

“If need be, I’ll come here another 20 times. The police will be here, and the National Guard will be here. When we enter, you can see that all these criminals are cowardly,” he said.

He rushed to the southern town after reports of an arson incident near a Jewish community in the area, in which five cars went up in flames in a gas station parking lot at the entrance to Lehavim.

Police claimed the arson was a “price tag” attack by Bedouin residents seeking revenge over the anti-crime raid, ongoing for three days since hundreds of police and Border Police officers entered the village on Monday.

But Jewish residents expressed doubts that the attack was nationally motivated, and speculated it was instead linked to an extortion racket targeting the gas station owner.

Ben Gvir was flanked by heavily armed police officers as he walked the streets. At his side were members of the Border Police’s National Guard force, which assumed responsibility for operations in the town on Tuesday. Border Police officers fanned out, conducting searches in houses the minister passed by on the road.

“I took into consideration that they would try to test us, but I know one thing from my experience in the prisons against the terrorists,” he said. “When we succeeded, we didn’t blink.”

He said that criminals have only one option, “to raise a white........

© The Times of Israel