09-Mar-16: Another Arab-on-Israeli attack in Jerusalem this morning

Scene of this morning's shooting near the Old City
[Image Source: Social media]

Police and ambulance sirens have been in the air non-stop this morning in the part of Jerusalem where we live.

A pair of Palestinian Arab men traveling in a car shot and critically injured an Israeli man this morning as he was standing at or close to the Jerusalem Light Rail line on Ha-Tzanhanim Street, beside the walls of the Old City and a 2 minute stroll from Damscus Gate.

Times of Israel says the two occupants of the vehicle were shot dead by Israel Police officers at the scene and that the shooters are

likely the same men who had carried out a failed shooting attack at a Jerusalem public bus elsewhere in Jerusalem earlier in the morning. They had opened fire on a number 32 Egged bus at the Ramot Junction in the city’s northwest. There were no injuries in the earlier shooting attack, and police launched a search for the vehicle that was seen driving away from the location.

The guns found inside the attack vehicle by
police after the two shooters were
eliminated this morning  next to the Old
City walls [Image Source]

And as if to remind us that everyone - Jews, Moslems, Christians, residents, visitors, old, young, soldiers, civilians - face the exact same danger from the jihadists, it quotes an ambulance service paramedic, Muhammad Abed al-Rahman, an employee of Magen David Adom, who treated the victim of the attack:

"We administered life-saving treatment to him and quickly took him away while keeping him sedated and on respiration. He is in serious condition."

And indeed, it turns out (according to an Israel National News update) that the man seriously injured in the gunfire was a Jerusalem Arab of about 50 named Imad Abu Ali. He too (like the Israeli victims of yesterday's gun attack) suffered a shooting injury to the head. That's where the jihadists are instructed to aim.

Ma'an News Agency's spin is, unsurprisingly, consistent with past form:

"Israeli police shot dead two Palestinians outside Jerusalem's Old City on Wednesday morning after they allegedly carried out a shooting... They were later identified as Abdul-Malak Saleh abu Kharoub,19, and and Muhammad Jamal al-Kalouti, 21."

The report published by Ma'an for its Arabic readers is, naturally, cast a little differently, inevitably describing both dead men as "martyrs". On one view, that's an odd thing to call a couple of well-armed toughs who opened fire from inside a moving car at a bus-load of rush-hour civilian passengers - which is what they did in Ramot this morning - and then a little later on passers-by in a predominantly-Arab part of the city.

But since their very well-funded news reporting is backed by such governments and major donors as the Human Rights and International Law Secretariat, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Netherlands, UK, EU, US, UNESCO, UNDP and the Arab Human Rights Fund, who are we to judge?