01-Apr-17: Jerusalem’s Old City: A Sabbath afternoon stabbing attack

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The visibly-wounded Israeli victims of the stabbing, shown in a video clip posted to Arabic media.

Another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing in Jerusalem’s Old City.

Based on a 4:15 pm Israel Police statement, two young Israeli men, dressed in identifiably Haredi clothing, evidently yeshiva students, were attacked on Hagai Street by a male Arab armed with a knife and suffered stab wounds to the upper parts of their bodies. From images posted to social media sites, at least one of the Israelis was stabbed from behind in the back between the shoulder blades.

The attacker, pursued by members of the Israeli security forces ducked into a home near the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva to try to evade them. They caught up with him and a struggle ensued in which one of the Israelis, an officer in the Border Police, was seriously injured. The knifer was then shot and killed.

Israelis came under rock-throwing attack shortly afterwards in the vicinity of the Old City’s heavily-secured Damascus Gate (Sha’ar Shechem in Hebrew). Stun grenades were reportedly used to neutralize those attackers.

The civilian victims of this afternoon’s stabbing, males aged 18 and 20, were taken to the hospital at Hadassah Ein Karem for emergency treatment and are reported to be in good condition and fully conscious. The Border Guard officer, in his early twenties, is recovering in hospital, and said to be in good condition too.

In the plaza outside Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate this afternoon, rock throwing and clashes [Image Source]

The attacker is reported, according to the PA’s Ministry of Health, to be a 17 year-old Arab male, Ahmad Zahir Fathi Ghazal from the Nablus area which is some 50 km north of Jerusalem. Arabic-language Posters celebrating his deed [here] were quickly posted to social media, along with a selfie [via Twitter] he evidently took earlier in the day and shortly before embarking on the knife attacks showing him standing on the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock in the background.

In its Arabic version of the news report but not in the English, the Ma’an News Agency, a notorious and controversial Palestinian Arab publisher, describes the attacker as “martyr” and his death as an execution by the Israelis. This is a standard approach in their reports of Arab-on-Israeli terrorist attacks.