In full shock over the shooting death of seven Jewish worshipers at the hands of a Palestinian on Friday, Jerusalem woke up on Saturday with a new shooting. On the outskirts of the City of David, an archaeological park attached to the walls of the old city, a 13-year-old Palestinian teenager opened fire with a pistol at a group of Jews, seriously wounding a father and son.
The young man's quick response - an off-duty soldier carrying a rifle - managed to prevent a greater tragedy, since he fired and left the attacker lying on the ground. Muhammad Aliyat got off a public bus with the weapon, and waited hidden behind a vehicle to cause as much damage as possible. The recruit who opened fire, belonging to the paratrooper unit, was critically wounded.
“He acted cold-blooded. He approached, shot and wounded the terrorist, and moments later he was taken to the hospital," the Israeli army spokesman said. Security forces immediately stormed the attacker's home in the Silwan neighborhood. The attack occurred in an area of frequent friction in the eastern part of Jerusalem, with multiple Jewish settlements standing in the heart of the Arab neighborhoods. Immediately, the security forces were deployed en masse in the adjacent streets, fearing further incidents.
“Allah, either victory or martyrdom. Forgive me mother, but you will be proud of me, ”Aliyat wrote in her school diary. He was aware of his high chances of dying from the attack, but he was ultimately injured and taken to an Israeli hospital. According to Palestinian media, the teenager was a neighbor and friend of a 16-year-old boy who died on Saturday after being shot by Israeli forces on Wednesday. Troops went to the neighborhood to demolish the home of another attacker, who killed a Jewish policewoman at a checkpoint in October.
The shooting on Friday night, which occurred outside a synagogue on the same day as International Holocaust Remembrance Day, was the bloodiest attack in Jerusalem in years. The Islamist group Hamas, which was quick to cash in on the killing, called it "revenge" for Israel's military operation in Jenin on Thursday, in which nine Palestinians were killed. Most were armed militants from Islamic Jihad and other factions, but a 60-year-old woman was also killed.
"We ask the population to alert any suspicious person or object immediately," said police chief Nitzab Yakov. In Israel and the West Bank, a state of maximum alert was decreed, and the commander-in-chief of the army, Herzi Halevi, ordered the troops to be prepared for a potential war escalation throughout the region.
In the early hours of Friday, the front in the Gaza Strip heated up after the launch of ten projectiles by the Palestinian armed factions. Several missiles were intercepted by “Iron Dome” anti-aircraft batteries or fell in open territory, and no injuries were reported. Israeli aircraft bombed Hamas military targets in response. Although the Islamist group takes advantage of the attacks to increase its popularity, it would not be interested in a new war in the strip.
The Israeli security cabinet met yesterday urgently to study the measures to be adopted. It was considered to order the immediate demolition of the perpetrators of terrorist attacks; the arrest of their relatives or friends; or the approval of thousands of permits for civilians to carry weapons.
While Western countries strongly condemned the synagogue attack that caused seven Israeli victims, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) considered that "Israel bears full responsibility for the dangerous escalation of violence, which caused 31 martyrs in the last month."
The two attacks this Saturday, carried out by "lone wolves", precede the imminent arrival of US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who will land in Israel on Monday.
Given the new announcement by the PNA to stop security coordination with the Israeli forces, analyst Michael Milshtein pointed out in Yediot Ajaronot that “it is urgent to resume cooperation with the PNA, and limit collective punishments that could set the West Bank on fire. It is advisable to involve Jordan, Egypt and other Arab countries to calm the atmosphere, ”he stressed.
The concern is that the beginning of the month of Ramadan (end of March) will lead to an uncontrolled violent outbreak.
