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| Image Source: Al Jazeera |
There has been an Arab-on-Israeli shooting attack this morning – the Moslem Sabbath – at a location adjacent to the sacred Temple Mount (in Hebrew: Har Habayit) plaza in Jerusalem’s Old City. Two Israeli victims are seriously injured with gunshot wounds and were rushed to Hadassah Medical Center’s Mount Scopus hospital for emergency treatment. A third is injured more lightly as a result of being hit by shrapnel and sustaining wounds to the neck, arms and hands. He is being treated at Jerusalem’s Shaarei Zedek Medical Center. The three are described in a Times of Israel report as men in their 30s.
Police opened fire on the attackers and all are now dead.
Police believe the gang of attackers approached the Temple Mount plaza shortly after 7:00 am today when the Temple Mount area is generally thronged with Muslim worshippers. They walked toward Lions’ Gate – Sha’ar Ha’arayot in Hebrew – where they opened fire on the Israelis. They then ran away towards the Temple Mount complex with Israeli police chasing them and firing.
Video posted in the past hour shows one of the shooters lying on the ground with Israeli police, guns drawn and surrounding him. He suddenly jumps up, takes a flying leap with a knife drawn clearly trying to wound one of the police officers. He is shot before he can complete the stabbing.
The shooters were armed with two Carlo-style (from Carl Gustav) sub-machine guns and a pistol. A knife was also found at the scene. Photos are circulating on the Hebrew-language social media [link] this morning showing three Israeli photo-identification cards, said to prove that the Arab shooters were all the holders of Israeli citizenship or residential status.
As scenes of attempted carnage go, the Temple Mount is an especially historical and sacred one. (It’s hard to ignore how often murderous attacks of a certain kind happen in synagogues, churches, mosques, sacred places and sacred times.) Lion’s Gate is thought to have that name according to one theory because of the image of leopards, mistaken for lions – two on the left and two on the right – embedded in the wall beside the gate itself. (Another version says they are indeed lions.) It marks the start of the 600 meter long Via Dolorosa along which Jesus walked, according to tradition, on the way to his crucifixion. Fifty years ago, it was the entry point through which Israeli paratroops passed during the 1967 Six-Day War and famously unfurled an Israeli flag above the Temple Mount.
None of this means Arab-on-Israeli terror attacks don’t happen in the vicinity. We have posted on attacks at or very close to Lions’ Gate several times in the past 15 months:
- 03-May-16: On a quiet lane in Jerusalem’s Old City, a Monday night terror-by-knifing attack
- 14-Dec-16: In Jerusalem’s Old City this afternoon, an Arab-on-Israeli stabbing
- 13-Mar-17: Jerusalem and the (alleged) knife-men
- 13-May-17: In Jerusalem’s Old City, a Jordanian stabs an Israeli and the Jordanians are outraged (so are we, for different reasons)
Times of Israel says Jerusalem Police chief Yoram Halevi canceled prayers for the day on the Temple Mount, ordering the complex cleared and the entrances to the holy site closed. Police also placed checkpoints at the entrances to the Old City.
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| Aftermath on the Temple Mount this morning [Image Source] |
How did the terrorists manage to bring weapons into the holy site? Normal procedure – perhaps to the surprise of people less familiar with how real life is lived here – is that Muslim visitors to the Temple Mount are subjected to less rigorous security checking than non-Muslim visitors, all of whom are obliged by the Israeli authorities to enter via the Mughrabi foot-bridge. There’s bound to be a high-level investigation since the implications are serious and broad.
Don’t expect the Palestinian Arab media to be asking the serious questions. They’re still totally stuck with their victim-centric narrative style – the sort of reporting (referring to the Fatah-controlled and scandalous Ma’an News Agency) that produces this opening line today:
Three Palestinians and two Israeli police officers were killed during an armed confrontation in the Old City of occupied East Jerusalem early on Friday morning… [“3 Palestinian citizens of Israel, 2 police officers killed in Jerusalem shooting“, Ma’an, today]
Armed confrontation?
Al Jazeerah’s man on the spot offers this insightful gem:
“It is reportedly the first time in years that the compound would be closed for prayers on Friday. Of course this has the potential to increase tensions among the about 10,000 Palestinians who normally pray here on Fridays,” Fawcett said. [“Jerusalem: Palestinians killed after ‘shooting attack’“, Al Jazeera, today]
The sub-machine guns and the knife don’t raise the tensions. The critically injured Israelis don’t raise tensions. The cynical abuse of a holy site doesn’t raise tensions. The utter silence of the Muslim religious leadership and the systematic failure to condemn Arab-on-Israeli terrorist attacks don’t raise tensions.
But a decision by responsible law-and-order authorities, conditioned by long experience to know the nature of the Palestinian Arab mobs and the harm that generally follows (mainly in their own settlements and to their own children) their irresponsible violence – that raises the tensions.
Lethal journalism is what it’s called.
UPDATE 12:30 pm on Friday July 14, 2017: Tragically, the two seriously injured Israelis shot by a gang of armed Arab attackers this morning have died of their wounds [Israel National News].
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