01-Apr-17: Jerusalem's Old City: A Sabbath afternoon stabbing attack

The visibly-wounded Israeli victims of the stabbing,
shown in a video clip posted to Arabic media. 

Another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing in Jerusalem's Old City.

Based on a 4:15 pm Israel Police statement, two young Israeli men, dressed in identifiably Haredi clothing, evidently yeshiva students, were attacked on Hagai Street by a male Arab armed with a knife and suffered stab wounds to the upper parts of their bodies. From images posted to social media sites, at least one of the Israelis was stabbed from behind in the back between the shoulder blades.

The attacker, pursued by members of the Israeli security forces, ducked into a home near the Ateret Cohanim Yeshiva to try to evade them. They caught up with him and a struggle ensued in which one of the Israelis, an officer in the Border Police, was seriously injured. The knifer was then shot and killed.

Israelis came under rock-throwing attack shortly afterwards in the vicinity of the Old City's heavily-secured Damascus Gate (Sha'ar Shechem in Hebrew). Stun grenades were reportedly used to neutralize those attackers. Another Arab-on-Israeli stabbing attack was foiled at Damascus Gate this past Wednesday.

The civilian victims of this afternoon's stabbing, males aged 18 and 20 (they're in the photo above), were taken to the hospital emergency room at Hadassah Ein Karem for emergency treatment and are reported to be in good condition and fully conscious. The Border Guard officer, in his early twenties, is recovering in hospital, and also said to be in good condition.

In the plaza outside Jerusalem's Damascus Gate this afternoon,
rock throwing and clashes [Image Source]

The attacker is reported, according to the PA's Ministry of Health, to be a 17 year-old Arab male, Ahmad Zahir Fathi Ghazal from the Nablus area which is some 50 km north of Jerusalem. Arabic-language Posters celebrating his deed [here] were quickly posted to social media, along with a pre-martyrdom selfie [via Twitter] he evidently took earlier in the day and shortly before embarking on the knife attacks showing him standing on the Temple Mount with the Dome of the Rock in the background.

In its Arabic version of the news report, but not in the English, the Ma'an News Agency, a notorious and controversial Palestinian Arab publisher, describes the attacker as "martyr" and his death as an execution by the Israelis. This is a fairly standard approach in their reporting of Arab-on-Israeli terrorist attacks.

We have no details of his family's reaction but know, on the basis of what has been published over the past several years about the Palestinian Authority's Rewards for Terror scheme (known also as Pay-to-Slay), that they now become entitled to substantial payments from the PA. As we noted recently, the relatives of the Palestinian Arab stabber who killed an American visitor to Tel Aviv, Taylor Force, a year ago now receive monthly payments equal to several times the average Palestinian wage.

Despite the PA's constant denials, the funding for this scheme and the fat payments it makes to terrorists and their families is made possible only because of the generosity of Western governments and via the polite blind eye they turn to this unconscionable abuse of foreign aid.

There are more details and background in our recent blog post: "28-Mar-17: The US can end the Palestinian Arab bureaucracy of terror".