Asia

Asia

One killed as Palestinian rams car into pedestrians in Jerusalem

05 November 2014 19:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. A Palestinian motorist rammed his van into pedestrians and then assaulted them with a metal bar in tension-ridden Jerusalem Wednesday, leaving one person dead and 13 others injured, before being shot dead by Israeli police, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

One of the injured died on the way to hospital, a spokesperson for Israel's medical emergency services confirmed to Xinhua, adding that two others were in critical condition. Initial reports put the number of the injured at eight.

The Islamic Hamas movement, in an email to the press, has claimed responsibility for the drive-over attack. "We insist on revenge for al-Aqsa Mosque and the martyrs of the Palestinian people," said the Hamas email.

The driver is Ibrahim Al-Akri, a Hamas militant from the Shuafat neighborhood in northeast Jerusalem, whose brother had been imprisoned by Israel and later released in a prisoner swap deal which led to the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2011, according to Palestinian media.

Israeli media reported that Al-Akri rammed his commercial vehicle through a crowd of people near the entrance to Jerusalem at the Shimon Hatzadik Street. He drove on and hit more bystanders in a nearby street. After his van hit other cars, Al-Akri got out of the vehicle and then hit people nearby with an iron rod. He was killed by policemen who arrived at the scene.

"This is a nationalistic incident and a Border Police officer is among those injured," Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israeli internal security minister, told reporters.

"Police responded in the right fashion ... the action of the border police officer who chased the assailant and quickly killed him was correct and professional," Aharonovich said, while calling for the destruction of the home of the assailant.

Quoted by local media, he said that police are widely deployed in Jerusalem, particularly in the "seam neighborhoods" between the eastern and western parts of the city and the city center.

The incident, the second of its kind in two weeks, took place at a time of heightening tensions between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem.

Last week, a baby and a woman were killed when a Palestinian crashed his car into a light rail station in Jerusalem, in another politically motivated murder. The driver was later shot by police and died of his wounds at hospital.

Earlier Wednesday, Palestinians and Israeli police clashed fiercely at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem's Old City after dozens of Jewish hard-liners attempted to visit near the holy place. The clashes left one Palestinian seriously wounded.

A police spokesperson told Xinhua that security forces used stun grenades to disperse masked Palestinians who were hurling stones and firecrackers at them. A Xinhua photographer at the scene said there have been heavy clashes between Palestinian protestors and Israeli police inside and outside the Al Aqsa Mosque compound Wednesday morning.

A statement by the police said the compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and Muslims as Noble Sanctuary, was briefly closed to Jewish visitors. Jews are allowed to visit the site but not to pray there.

Israel's Ha'aretz daily quoted a physician, who was on the site, as saying that a Palestinian man was seriously injured by a sponge- tipped bullet fired by Israeli security forces.

Israel's Ynet news website reported that the violence erupted as a group of far-right activists known as "Temple Mount loyalists " arrived at the entrance of the holy site, trying to conduct a prayer vigil to mark a week since a Palestinian shot Yehuda Glick, a right-wing activist.

Palestinians consider such visits as provocations and frequently respond to it with violence.

Glick is a leader of the "Temple Mount loyalists," a far-right messianic movement seeking to rebuild the Jewish temple and maintain Israeli dominance over the biblical Land of Israel, including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. They often try to visit the site and pray there.

Tensions have soared between Jews and Arabs in Jerusalem since July, when Jewish extremists kidnapped and killed a 15-year-old Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem.

There have since been clashes between East Jerusalem Palestinian residents hurling stones and fire-bombs at Israeli security forces, as well as attacks by Jewish extremists against Arab bystanders.

On Sunday, the Israeli parliament approved harsher punishments against rock throwers, allowing penalties up to 20 years in prison for casting rocks or fire-bombs at vehicles.