Jerusalem – A Palestinian man fatally stabbed two Israelis as they walked in Jerusalem’s Old City and seriously injured a woman and a toddler, before he was shot and killed by an officer on duty, police said Saturday in the latest in a series of Palestinian attacks.
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Jerusalem police chief Moshe Edri said the Palestinian “stabbed an Israeli man, his wife and the toddler” multiple times in an alleyway before stabbing another man.
Watch below: A passerby in Jerusalem’s Old City captured the horrific murder of two Israelis.
Both Israeli men succumbed to their wounds, he said, adding that the mother and the toddler are in serious condition. Israeli media later reported the toddler was lightly injured.
The victims were Rabbi Nehemia Lavie, 41, Rabbi Lavi, a father of seven, is originally from Beit El in Binyamin north of Jerusalem, but has lived in the Old City for the past 23 years. He is a rabbi at Yeshivat Ateret Kohanim. and Aharon Benita from Beitar Illit.
The toddler’s mother, 22, was in critical condition.
Police Spokeswoman Luba Samri said the Palestinian attacker took a gun from one of the wounded men and opened fire at police and tourists.
The Palestinian attacker was then shot and killed by an Israeli police officer who rushed to the scene. Police later identified him as Muhannad Halabi, a 19-year-old from Al Bireh, near Ramallah.
Hamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, issued a statement praising the attack which it called, “heroic.”
It was the latest in a series of deadly Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians.
On Thursday, suspected Palestinian gunmen killed an Israeli couple in front of their children as they drove in the West Bank.
Multiple shots killed Eitam and Naama Henkin, residents of the Jewish West Bank settlement of Neria. Their four young children, including a four-month-old infant, were in the back seat of the car during the shooting but were unharmed.
Hamas welcomed that attack as well, but no Palestinian group immediately claimed responsibility for it. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has not commented on the latest attacks.
Israel forces were later deployed in the West Bank hunting for the gunmen.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said earlier that eight people were wounded by gunfire early Saturday in the northern town of Nablus. A Palestinian security official said seven members of the Islamic militant group Hamas were arrested. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.
The Israel military said troops operated in the area but would not elaborate further.
The attack Saturday night follows a recent spike in Palestinian attacks and a hard-line speech at the United Nations by Abbas, the last of several that Israeli leaders have condemned as incitement. Abbas has said that Israelis desecrate the Jerusalem holy site with their “dirty feet.”
Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said the “ruthless and cruel terrorism aimed at innocent civilians that attempts to disrupt our lives and hurt us is a direct result of incitement by the Palestinian Authority and routine incitement in mosques.”
He called on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “act decisively against those who incite and encourage terrorism.”
Netanyahu is set to convene a meeting of top security officials when he returns to Israel on Sunday from the U.S.
Tensions have flared between Israelis and Palestinians in recent weeks, with much of the unrest focused on Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, site of the Al-Aqsa mosque.
The hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City is a frequent flashpoint and its fate is a core issue at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It is known to Jews as the Temple Mount, site of the two biblical Jewish temples. Muslims revere it as the Noble Sanctuary, where they believe the Prophet Muhammad ascended to heaven.
Non-Muslim visitors are only allowed to enter the site at specific hours and are banned by police from praying there. Many Muslims view these visits as a provocation and accuse Jewish extremists of plotting to take over the site. Israel has promised to ensure the delicate arrangement at the site and insists it will not allow the status quo there to be changed.
But Palestinians say that in the last two months, there has been a new development where Israel has intermittently restricted some Muslims from the compound when Jews visit. Israel says this is to reduce friction, but Palestinians claim that Israel intends to establish Muslim-free Jewish visiting hours. The site is so sensitive that even rumors are enough to trigger violence there.
Halabi appears to have been motivated by the tensions over the holy site. On Friday he wrote on his Facebook page: “What’s happening to our holy places, what’s happening to our mothers and sisters in Al-Aqsa mosque? We are not the people who accept humiliation. Our people will revolt.”
Israel has blamed Palestinian leaders for incitement. There have been several days of clashes at the site over the past few weeks as Muslim protesters barricaded themselves inside the mosque while hurling stones, firebombs and fireworks at police. The unrest spread to Arab neighborhoods of east Jerusalem, where Palestinian protesters hurled stones at police and Israeli cars.
An Israeli died when Palestinians pelted his car with rocks and several others were injured in other incidents. Dozens of Palestinians were wounded in clashes with Israeli forces in violence that followed the Jerusalem unrest then. Israel responded last week by approving harsher measures that would loosen the rules of engagement for police to respond to stone throwers.
Israel captured the eastern part of Jerusalem, where the site is located, along with the West Bank in the 1967 war from Jordan, territory the Palestinians claim for their future state.
We Jews had better to be ready to stand up and not be sheep this time around. And being on the same team might help. Jews against Israel precipitate the hate against all of us. Go to Syria and daven there.
Can we all admit now that meir Kahane hy’d was right????????? My morrocan father and Tunisian mother will concur. They’re ANIMALS!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh how horrible to wake up motzei shabos to such a gruesome tragedy! Oy boruch dayan emes!!!! What wont these horrible HAr Habayis despicable so called yiddn understand???? Whenever u people go up and rytz zich with the crazed Arabs, this is what follows. We have seen it time and time again!! U self hating jews have the blood of these innocent people on your hands!
it is way overdue to start treating these savages as savages and to annihilate them as this is WAR and needs to be treated as such
Israel cannot afford to have the streets unsafe for its own Jewish people and let these animals roam around free.
the first thing to do is to destroy these savages entire family,all relatives they “leave”‘ behind and the neighborhood where he is from,as they are all in cahoots together.
When will the Israelis wake up????
Terrible tragedies!!!! The couple and the other victims breaks everyones heart. All the Rabbis that endorse living in the West Bank bear responsibility for the terrible tragedy of the couple. How can a a rightminded person set foot in a lions den??? And all the people entering the forbidden HarHabayis territory are INDEED responsible for these new victims. Hope you can live with it!
The old city of jerusalem must be made safe for jews to use. The arabs must be pushed out if they cant be controlled..
Prime Minister Netanyahu and the Israeli government should invite Putin and the Russian forces who are already in Syria to come fight Islamic terrorists in Israel and Judea and Samaria I think he is the only one who can bring this to a stop
It’s time to put a stop to the violence taking place in Israel.
אם אין אני מי לי. We have to stick up for ourselves for our families and children. After such a tragic event takes place we need to daven pray hard and do concrete action. We have to go back 50 years ago when a arab would run a block when he saw a jew approaching. Time to break loose and fight for our existence our freedom our way of life our sanity. Let’s fight our way through the violence and put up a forceful defense against those savages.
Sure! Allow the gangsters and lawless teens that only want to PUSH ISRAEL INTO THE SEA as they promised years and years before any Jew or Rabbi ascended the Temple Mount (which incidentally doesn’t belong to the Arabs) to do as they please. Right? Of course not! You just don’t understand what’s going on there. You wouldn’t want the Chinese telling you how to settle the Bloomingburg “war”. Would you?
Where is the world’s condemnation of the murderers? Silence throughout. Hypocrites who say that Israel’s building of homes on land it owns is an obstacle to peace yet are silent when atrocities occur, saying it is justified. Same murderers with new names… This is happening more and more as the UN pats itself on the back for promoting it.