Friday, September 16, 2016

16-Sep-16: Arab-on-Israeli stabber thwarted at one of Jerusalem's Old City gates

The stabber lies died at the entrance to Damascus Gate [Image Source]
As it does from time to time, Israel relaxed certain of its security practices earlier this month in order to accommodate the needs of Muslims celebrating one of Islam's major festivals, Eid al-Adha.

Some 100,000 Palestinian Arab family visits from their homes in Judea and Samaria into Jerusalem were approved for the holiday including access to the Temple Mount and Gaza Arabs, among others, were given entry via the Allenby Bridge crossing on the Jordan River. [Source: "Liberman allows easing of restrictions for Muslim holiday" | Israel National News, September 5, 2016]

By no coincidence, the Allenby crossing is in today's news.

In the past hour, at about 12:40 pm Friday, security officers of the Israeli Border Guard shot and killed a Jordanian male as he attacked, and sought to stab, a female officer. The attack took place at Jerusalem's busy Damascus Gate.
The area has been closed off, and additional officers were brought to the scene, the spokesperson said... The officer was not injured in the attack. The man arrived at the Damascus Gate from inside the Old City and approached a group of officers with a knife drawn. The officers saw the man coming towards them with the blade and opened fire, police said. The 28-year-old assailant was carrying a Jordanian passport, but police were still investigating if he also held a Palestinian ID card. His name has yet to be released. The man entered Israel through the Allenby border crossing on Thursday afternoon. It was not immediately clear why he was in Israel, though it is possible he was visiting for the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday, which ends on Friday... [Times of Israel, September 16, 2016]
Ynet adds that the assailant was heard shouting "Allahu Akhbar" as he ran at the group of Border Guard police with a knife in each hand. A third knife was found concealed on his dead body. It quotes the police spokesperson saying that security personnel
identified the suspect, and carried out the proper protocols. The terrorist quickly approached the officers with his hand raised and clutching a knife. The officers acted professionally, and identified him as an attacker [and] neutralized him. [Ynet, today]
Needless to say, the English-language version of the Ma'an News Agency website refers in its headline to "alleged stab attack". In the Palestinian Arab narrative, in which the European-funded, Bethlehem-based Ma'an is an active player, terrorism by Arabs against Jews and Israelis is always, but always, alleged. This saves a great deal of soul searching, even while it makes their pretensions at being an objective reporter of the local news a bad joke.

The Arabic-language version of the same report [here] calls him, as usual, "martyr".

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