Once again Palestinian terrorists used their vehicles to try and kill as many Israelis as possible, in two separate incidents today.
An Arab drove his car into a crowd of people waiting at a light rail station in Jerusalem, killing one and injuring several others
This afternoon (Wednesday), in an almost copycat attack of the attack 2 weeks ago, a Palestinian terrorist rammed his van into a Jerusalem light-rail stop killing a border policeman and injuring several other pedestrians:
An Arab driver plowed his vehicle into a crowd of people at a light rail station along the seam-line between East and West Jerusalem late Wednesday morning, killing a Border Police officer, and injuring 14 more people, one of them critically.
“Ten people were wounded, one of whom is in critical condition,” emergency services spokesman Zaki Heller said.
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Police said the driver hit several pedestrians at a light rail station on the corner of Bar Lev and Shimon Ha’Zadik streets, close to the Border Police headquarters on Route 1, and then continued driving along the tracks, hitting several cars along the way until finally crashing to a halt.
Akary then got out of his white commercial van, carrying a metal bar, and began attacking a group of policemen before Border Police at the scene shot and killed the attacker.
Footage quickly emerged (WARNING: graphic images) of bystanders at the light rail stop being run down by Akary, while some managed to elude the speeding van.
Here is a less graphic but no less shocking video of the actual attack. Watch the white van as it speeds towards the pedestrians at the train stop:
Returning to the ToI link:
The fatality was named as Border Police officer Jedan Assad, 38, from Beit Jann, a Druze village. Assad was a father to a three-year-old boy; his wife is five months pregnant. His father said later that Assad “loved his service, and loved Jerusalem,” and called for agreements that would prevent more fatalities, “be they Jews, Arabs or Druze.”
Jaddan HY’D and his son Amir Assad (Photo: Courtesy of the family)
May Hashem avenge his blood and may his family be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem – yes, even though this is typically a prayer for Jewish mourners, this warm Druze family are loyal Israeli citizens and have thrown in their fate with us. And now Jedan has given his life in defence of his country.
UPDATE: In a tragic echo of the previous car-terror attack 2 weeks ago, another victim of this car-attack, Shimon Ba’adani HY’D, only 17 years old, succumbed to his wounds.
Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital has announced that Shalom Ba’adani hy’d, a 17-year-old teen yeshiva student, has died of the critical wounds he sustained in the attack at the Shimon Hatzadik light rail station.
Ba’adani is the grandson of Rabbi Shimon Ba’adani, a member of the Shas Council of Torah Sages, and therefore Shas party members were among his visitors in the hospital according to reports.
It took several hours to identify Ba’adani on Wednesday, a process that eventually was completed thanks to his cell phone being found at the scene of the attack. According to his parents, Ba’adani was bicycling to the Kotel (Western Wall) when the attack occurred.
May Hashem avenge his blood and may his family be comforted amongst the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. May his death not have been in vain.
As for the murderous Arab who killed one of his own – what a “nice” family he came from:
Palestinian Ma’an news agency identified the terrorist as 48-year-old Ibrahim al-Akary from Shuafat in East Jerusalem, a father of five. Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades tweeted out pictures it said showed the attacker, who it called Akazi, one of which showed him lying on the ground after being shot.
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The attacker’s brother, Musa Muhammad al-Akary, served 19 years in an Israeli prison for the 1992 kidnapping and murder of IDF soldier Nissim Toledano in Lod. He was released in the 2011 deal that freed IDF soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas captivity, and was expelled to Turkey.
The country was still recovering from the shock of this second car-ramming attack when yet another one took place this evening in Gush Etzion, not far from the spot where the three teenagers were kidnapped in the summer. Three soldiers were injured in this attack but the perpetrator has managed to evade capture so far:
Three IDF soldiers were injured in a second terror attack on Wednesday evening – this time, in an attempt to run over soldiers in Gush Etzion.
In the latest attack, a terrorist driving a Palestinian Arab commercial vehicle attempted to run over the soldiers as they were on duty near a guard stand outside of Kafr Al-Arub.
The driver then fled from the scene, driving southward. Security forces located the car a short time later, but the driver was nowhere to be found.
Paramedics and Magen David Adom staff gave medical treatment to the three wounded; of the three, one of them is wounded critically, with chest and limb injuries, and two were wounded moderately.
They have been evacuated to Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital in Jerusalem for treatment.
From 0404 News, here is a rather grainy video of the car-ramming of the soldiers:
The Israeli police have taken action as best as they know how – purely defensive action that is, placing concrete blocks at every light-rail station to prevent further car-ramming attacks. It’s not a bad idea as such but of course this does not address the deeper problem. The Prime Minister held an emergency meeting with his top security personnel to discuss the upsurge in violence. Let us hope they come up with some more original and pro-active ideas to stem this violence before it becomes worse.
All discussions of whether we are in the midst of a third intifada now appear to be moot. It is obvious to anyone with eyes in their head, as long as that head is not buried in the sand, that a third intifada is well under way, with its focus in Jerusalem.
The violence is being brazenly aided and abetted by vicious incitement from the very top, from Mahmoud Abbas himself on down.
For example Palestinian Media Watch reports on a vile antisemitic cartoon published in an official Palestinian newspaper – those Palestinians who are supposed to be our “peace partners”. (h/t Elder of Ziyon who has an excellent roundup of links about Palestinian incitement). I won’t embed the cartoon itself. It is absolutely disgusting. You can see it for yourselves at the link.
A cartoon showing an Israeli soldier about to rape the Al-Aqsa Mosque portrayed as a woman in jail was posted today by the National Security Forces of the Palestinian Authority. A woman is weeping in a prison cell while an Israeli soldier is undoing his pants outside the cell, saying: “Come on, sweetheart.” The woman is wearing a headdress shaped as the Dome of the Rock. The cartoon appeared with the text: “Daily cartoon: Al-Aqsa is being raped.”
This cartoon appears while tension is high in Jerusalem and Palestinian officials are repeatedly telling Palestinians that Jerusalem and its Muslim holy places are in danger.
PA Chairman Abbas himself implicitly called for the use of violence to protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and praised the terrorist who tried to kill Rabbi Yehuda Glick as a “Martyr” who died “defending our people’s rights and holy places,” as reported by Palestinian Media Watch.
Recently, the official PA daily also published two cartoons, which promoted the use of violence to defend Muslim holy sites.
Palestinian incitement emanates from our “very own” Arab Knesset members too, who have suddenly discovered the third holiestness of the Temple Mount. The execrable Hanin Zoabi, who belongs in jail rather than in the Knesset, accused the Israelis of not having learned the lessons of the Holocaust (where have we heard that one before?). From the JPost link:
Arab MKs confronted police who temporarily sealed off the Temple Mount to visitors on Wednesday morning after dozens of Palestinian rioters hurled stones and shot fireworks at security forces in the vicinity.
“You say we are terrorists and that we want to fight you,” MK Haneen Zoabi (Balad) shouted to Border Police blocking her from accessing the area. “We want to live, to pray, to enter our schools, our home, our land. This is terrorism? To live is terrorism? To fight for our right to live is terrorism?”
Zoabi compared the police’s behavior toward her to the Holocaust: “Someone did this to you, decades ago. Remember that? Somebody did rule over you and screwed you over decades ago. You did not learn the lesson.
“What is the lesson of the Holocaust? Don’t yell and don’t be racist, right?” she said. “They killed six million of you, why?”
If that’s the lesson that Zoabi has learned from the Holocaust, I have great fears for the future of Israeli Arab-Israeli relations.
Contrast Zoabi’s outrageous and disrespectful behviour at her “third-holiest site” with the modest and respectful demeanour of Bayit Yehudi MK Shuli Moalem. And yet that did not prevent hysterically shrieking Arab women from shouting and jostling Mrs. Moalem as she quietly walked about the Mount:
PM Netanyahu pointed the finger directly at Palestinian President-for-life Abbas, accusing him of responsibility for the terror attacks by inciting to murder:
The attack was the “direct consequence of Abu Mazen’s [Abbas’s] incitement and that of his Hamas partners,” Netanyahu declared, speaking at a memorial ceremony marking 19 years since prime minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated. “We are engaged in an ongoing battle in Jerusalem. I have no doubt that we will prevail,” he added.
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Netanyahu added that peace with the Palestinians could not be achieved so long as the Palestinians backed terrorism rather than seeking to defeat it.
Netanyahu has blamed Abbas several times recently for fomenting unrest in Jerusalem. On Monday, the prime minister charged that Abbas was “adding fuel to the fire.”
Abbas came under harsh Israeli criticism for writing a condolence letter last week to the family of the shooter of Jewish right-wing activist Yehudah Glick, a Palestinian named Mu’taz Hijazi, praising his actions and calling him “a martyr.” This was a case of “increasing incitement” against Israel by Abbas, Netanyahu said Wednesday. Hijazi was killed by security forces when they tried to arrest him last Thursday.
Last month, Netanyahu leveled blame at Abbas for a similar terror attack in which a driver rammed his car into a crowd at a light rail station on October 22, killing two people.
The incitement and violence, particularly at the Temple Mount, has reached such a pitch that Jordan today recalled its ambassador to Israel for “consultations”:
Prime Minister Abdullah Nsur asked the foreign minister to “recall the Jordanian ambassador from Tel Aviv in protest at Israel’s escalation on the Al-Aqsa mosque compound,” the Petra news agency reported.
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The Jordanian government has made several threats to Israel against allowing Jews to set foot on the Temple Mount – Judaism’s holiest site.
The Waqf Islamic trust to which Israel handed over administration of the Temple Mount is run by Jordan, and the Jordanian government has led pressure against any Jewish prayers being conducted on the Temple Mount, with Jordan’s King Abdullah II recently vowing to fight any attempts to implement equal prayer arrangements for Jews.
“Jordan will continue to confront, through all available means, Israeli unilateral policies and measures in Jerusalem and preserve its Muslim and Christian holy sites, until peace is restored to the land of peace,” the king said in a speech Sunday which notably made no mention of Jewish holy sites in the Israeli capital.
What a chutzpah from Jordan! The violence is clearly all one-sided, with masses of documentation from the media and security cameras. Nowhere in any agreement between Israel and the Waqf is there a ban on a Jewish presence or even Jewish prayer at the Temple Mount. Israel has let the Arabs get away with their lies, their vicious murderous incitement and their murderous violence for far too long.
It’s time we took matters back into our own hands, both on the Temple Mount and in Jerusalem in general, as well as throughout the country.
Anne's Opinions 
Currently there is an exhibition in Hong Kong called “Temple, Scrolls and Divine Messengers: Archaeology of the Land of Israel in Roman Times”. A replica of the whole book of Isaiah found in the Dead Sea Scrolls is in display. Yesterday I went to look at it, along with the “Gabriel Revelation Stone” (real one) and other excavated bowls and lamps and pots of first few centuries CE. On the Isaiah scroll, I looked intently (as the Hebrew scripts are small, blurred and somewhat difficult for me to recongize) and soon found one very clear “ISRAEL” and there surely are many more. It proves that Israel was on that piece of land way long before Islam was a word or any Muslim lived on earth. Why don’t people understand this and keep propagating wrong media? (I mean people other than “Palestinians”)
The exhibition sounds fascinating! They must have brought items over from the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. The Hebrew on those ancient scrolls is very hard to decipher. The script is markedly different to what we use today, but as you say, if you make the effort, you can definitely make out the words, especially if you know how the text reads.
As to your question, well, welcome to the world of antisemitism. It’s literally the age-old question of why do people hate the Jews? And why hate them so viscerally, so viciously and so virulently, out of all proportion. Just see the Gaza protests from this summer for example.
And the answer is… I don’t know. Jealousy at our strength despite our small numbers? Or jealousy of our “special relationship” with G-d? Or most likely, anger that the Jews introduced ethical monotheism to the world, when what the haters all really want is to be able to murder, rape and rob without any qualms. In other words, the Jews gave the world a conscience, and the world hates us for it.
Of course I’m speaking in generalities, because Israel and the Jews have a huge number of genuine and loyal friends. We don’t even know if our friends outnumber the haters. But the haters have a much louder voice and are amplified by a hostile media and the “elites” – the literati, the intelligentsia (or should it be the unintelligentsia?) and the “chatterati”.
WOW!!!!!!! This is reaslly getting out of hand. How on Earth can Jordan tell Israel that Jews cannot visit or worship the Temple Mount. That is just absurd!! I fell like I’m watching “Alice In Wonderland” here. This is some form of insanity.
As far as the car attacks go .. brutal. That is just brutal. If you look at the exact sequence, the van with the terrorist driver diverts from a normal course, and it is mere seconds before he hits the crowd. I dont think any normal person could react, in the few moments it takes that van to hit the victoms. It’s really bad. My condolences to the family of your policeman, and to the victims who are in hospital. Prayers for all of their families, and those being treated.
What a world we are in.
Pete, USA
Pete, unfortunately Jordan does have a say in what goes on at the Temple Mount due to the historical circumstances of the area. Jerusalem was supposed to be an international city under the British Mandate, but that was never implemented of course, and as soon as the British left in 1948, 5 Arab armies invaded and eventually Jordan captured the Old City. That remained the status quo for 19 years until Israel liberated Jerusalem in 1967. You can read about the war of Independence at this link.
How those mere 19 years became the fixed status for the UN and all the other anti-Israel haters, whereas the thousands of years beforehand are ignored, is a matter for a psychologist.
Meanwhile the Waqf is making sure to destroy as much evidence of Jewish history on the Mount as they can. It is a criminal act under international law to destroy historical relics, but you get the UN to utter a word. Or the Israeli authorities for that matter.
As for the car attacks, I don’t know how one can prevent them. Anyone with a car, or who can steal one, can commit murder like this. The solution is to let the IDF and the police go into the Arab towns and neighbourhoods and root out the terrorists at source, like Ariel Sharon did in Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin, Ramallah, Tulkarm etc. during the second Intifada. Of course the intel will be harder, because you’re not looking for explosives and guns, just cars and intent. But it can be done, I’m sure. All we need is political will.
And that’s a whole other ball-game.
I think it is just crazy to put cncrete blocks round train stops to prevent repeats of these incidents.The next thing will be tunnels built all round the rail system and lo and behold we will have a tube or metro type train !We must find a deterrnt to this new form of murder, not just cowering behind walls.We have the best brains in the world so go use them to find an answer.
You’re right on principle, but in practice there’s nothing wrong with taking defensive action.
But that must NOT be the end of it, as you so correctly said. As I said to Pete above, we MUST take the offensive and go in to the Arab towns and root out the terrorists at source. Or take other punitive action to deter them. We’ll anyway be accused of collective punishment so we might as well actually do it.
Seeing as the two car attacks on the light railway both emanated from Shuafat camp, how about putting concrete blocks on the entry/exit roads to that camp, thus not allowing any cars out of there? Inhabitants will have to walk out and catch a bus. Collective punishment? Indeed. We’re in a war.
Now that is a good idea. Just like we took the war to Jenin, we should take the war to Shuafat.
Exactly. This is what I call the “containment strategy” applied to the Muslim world more broadly- but it would work in IL, too. Stop all LRT trains short of the Arab areas of J, “internal border controls” for those that wish to leave their enclaves. And a nominal poll tax on any arrivals/departures, to pay for the additional Israeli security costs- name it for what it is, economic jihad against IL.
And after any events that arise from the enclave? Deportation for the terrorist (if it survives) and all of its extended family- say, three degrees out, and their immediate relocation to Hamastan.
No more engagement by the Izzies with the PA until the incitement stops completely for six months. No exceptions.
Abdullah is hanging on to his Hashemite “throne” by a hair- this is all optics from the Jordanians so that their “Palestinian” demographic cohort does not become restive…
Naftali Bennett is ahead of all of us here. He has condemned our hiding behind concrete barriers as JudyPT said above. He has demanded a “Defensive Shield” against the perpetrators. Netanyahu has also ordered demolition of the terrorists’ houses. Let’s see how that works against our leftist judiciary though.
The police are also going to restrict Muslim entry to the Temple Mount tomorrow (Friday). That should be fun and games… Expect more seething.
has anyone noticed how quiet the world has become? No condemnations?Of course not.Its only pesky Jews -or sadly Druze.I heard last night the last Police commissioner talking.He rightly said what’s the point of putting concrete blocks at every light rail stop.They”ll run over pedestrians or those waiting at bus stops etc..We can’t blockade an entire town(unless we use Davidinpt’s very good idea of blockading Shuafat.) As he said it’s time to turn the tables &take back control of Jerusalem using every means we have including police,army,political and other ways.For example to start with the entire family of the terrorist should lose Israeli citizenship and social security.Their house should be destroyed and the family deported to Gaza.If they realise this will be their punishment perhaps it will stop.I agree but can you imagine the outcry this will cause also within our own leftist politically(in)correct crowd?
Well, it’s a dog bites man story when Arabs attack Jews. It only becomes news when we hit back. There were a couple of mild condemnations but there’s always a “but” or calls for restraint attached.
You’ll be happy to see some of the gov’t reactions – finally. See my reply to Earl and David above. Bibi has ordered house demolitions for the terrorists and Bennett is demanding a Defensive Shield op against the terrorists. Let’s hope it works…
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