As thousands more cops, troops deployed to tamp down attacks, Abbas’s Fatah showers praise on terrorists
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to raise the problem of Palestinian “incitement” at Sunday’s cabinet meeting, and to seek solutions to the problem from Israel’s security and intelligence agencies.
Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed Palestinian leaders’ rhetoric of delegitimization of Israel lies at the root of ongoing terrorism against Israelis.
According to a Saturday statement from the Prime Minister’s Office, he has ordered security officials to come up with measures to combat anti-Israel messages and incitement, including from Israel’s own Islamic Movement group.
While some, including senior IDF intelligence analysts, insist PA President Mahmoud Abbas has worked to calm tensions and head off the latest wave of violence, Netanyahu has continued to place the blame for encouraging the terror attacks squarely on the PA’s shoulders. He has pointed at Abbas’s claims about Israeli plans to divide the Temple Mount as attempts to stoke the violence.
Abbas’s Fatah party has also been at the forefront – at least rhetorically – of praising recent terror attacks.
On Saturday evening, posters distributed by Fatah in the West Bank lionized two Palestinians who had stabbed Israelis earlier in the day.
One flyer praised Ishaq Badran, the 16-year-old Palestinian from East Jerusalem killed as he stabbed two elderly Israelis in Jerusalem’s Old City on Saturday, as a “heroic martyr,” and promised “eternal life and glory for our shahids,” the Arabic word for martyr, the Ynet news site reported.
The flyer bears photos of Fatah founder Yasser Arafat — and of its current leader Abbas.
A similar poster was printed by Fatah on Saturday honoring Mohammed Ali, who attacked police officers at Jerusalem’s Damascus Gate on Saturday afternoon.
The posters were spread via, among other venues, Fatah’s official Twitter account, Ynet notes.
They are in keeping with rampant praise showered on such attackers in official PA radio and television.
With no end in sight for the violence – 14 Palestinian stabbing attacks against Israeli civilians have occurred in the past week – Sunday will see the deployment of 16 freshly-mobilized reserve Border Police companies. Netanyahu ordered the call-up on Saturday.
The PM “approved the mobilization of 13 Border Police companies, in addition to the three that have already been mobilized [earlier in the day],” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement Saturday afternoon.
The three companies called up earlier were of Border Police reservists who will be deployed mostly in and around Jerusalem starting Sunday. The total number of those mobilized could reach between 1,300-2,000.
Much of the violence has centered around Palestinian claims that Israel sought to change the five-decade-old status quo on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism which also houses the Muslim al-Aqsa Mosque. The site is administered by the Muslim Waqf. Under rules set by Israel, Jews are allowed to visit but not to pray at the site.
Last week, Netanyahu ordered Israeli politicians, Arab and Jewish alike, banned from the holy site in an effort to prevent a further deterioration.
Lawmakers from the Joint Arab List protested the decision and vowed in its wake that they would visit the Temple Mount on Friday. They then delayed the planned visit to Sunday.
But on Saturday, the list’s lawmakers reportedly decided not to attempt to enter the holy site, likely a move intended to help reduce tensions.
Meanwhile, rock throwing incidents and protests by Israeli Arabs continued into the early hours of Sunday.
An Arab Israeli man was arrested in Kafr Kanna early Sunday on suspicion of throwing rocks at security forces in late Saturday riots in the village.
Another Arab Israeli, age 17, was arrested in Bu’eine Nujeidat, east of Haifa. He is suspected of setting a tire on fire at the entrance to the nearby Jewish village of Beit Netofa.
A man and a woman were lightly injured late Saturday in a rock-throwing attack near the Galilee Arab vilage of Tour’an. The two victims were hit by flying glass when their cars’ windows shattered after being struck by stones as they drove on Road 77 near the village.
Palestinians threw rocks at cars driving along Highway 6 near Taibe late Saturday, police said. A stretch of the north-south highway runs just meters from the West Bank security fence in that area. There are no reports of injuries or damage from the Highway 6 attacks. Sharon Region Police swept the area in pursuit of the attackers, but no arrests were reported.
Earlier Saturday, at least ten Israeli Arab protesters in the central city of Ramle were arrested and five more were detained in the northern city of Nazareth in violent clashes with police.
In Nazareth, some 1,500 Israeli Arabs took to the streets “in protest of the Israeli occupation,” Channel 2 reported. The demonstrators also hailed a local Arab woman who attempted to stab an Israeli security guard in a suspected terror attack on Friday. She was shot by security forces and is being treated in hospital.
In Ramle, police said 10 were arrested after a group of at least 100 protesters threw stones at police during a protest against the Israeli government.
On Saturday morning, the Palestinian teenager Badran stabbed and wounded two ultra-Orthodox Jews, aged 62 and 65, at the Old City’s Damascus Gate. Police said they shot and killed the 16-year-old terrorist.
Hours later, another East Jerusalem teenager was killed after carrying out a similar attack, stabbing a Border Police officer in the neck also outside Damascus Gate before being shot dead by officers.
Following the attack, dozens of Arab protesters clashed with police near Damascus Gate, with some throwing rocks at law enforcement officials. Police responded with non-lethal means, Ynet reported.
Earlier in the day, a Palestinian man seriously wounded during clashes with Israeli Border Police in East Jerusalem on Friday died of his wounds, police and Palestinian medical sources said. Police said he was shot after opening fire at Border Police late on Friday night.
In the West Bank, Palestinian protesters continued to clash with Israeli security forces throughout Saturday, resulting in a number of injuries.
In Hebron, dozens of youths burned tires and hurled firebombs after the funeral of a terrorist who stabbed and injured a policeman in Kiryat Arba on Friday.
Outside Ramallah in the city of al-Bireh, some 150 Palestinian protesters burned tires and threw rocks at Israeli security forces, Ynet reported. At least one Palestinian was injured by a rubber bullet fired by IDF soldiers attempting to disperse the crowds. An unconfirmed number of other injuries were reported.
On Friday, two Israelis were lightly injured in separate stabbing attacks in Jerusalem and the West Bank settlement of Kiryat Arba. In Afula, an Arab woman from Nazareth was shot and wounded after she tried to stab a security guard at the central bus station in the northern city.
Also Friday, an Israeli teenager stabbed and wounded four Arabs in an apparent revenge attack in Dimona.
On Thursday, seven Israelis were injured in four stabbing incidents, including attacks in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Kiryat Arba. On Wednesday, Israelis were hurt in three stabbings.
Those attacks came days after two Israeli men were stabbed to death in the Old City of Jerusalem last Saturday and an Israeli couple was gunned down in the West Bank in front of their four children two days before that.
As reported by The Times of Israel