Police kill Palestinian suspect after attempted assassination
October 30, 2014
Israeli counter-terrorism police on Thursday shot dead a Palestinian suspected of trying to assassinate a far-right Jewish activist in Jerusalem just hours earlier.
"Anti-terrorist police units surrounded a house in the Abu Tor neigborhood to arrest a suspect in the attempted assassination of Yehuda Glick, immediately upon arrival they were shot at. They returned fire and shot and killed the suspect," police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.
The dead man was identified by an official website of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas as 32-year-old Moataz Hejazi.
Hejazi had spent 11 years in an Israeli prison, and was released in 2012.
His death came just hours after a man on a motorbike shot and severely wounded Jewish activist Yehuda Glick in Jerusalem as Glick left a conference promoting a Jewish campaign to permit praying at a compound in the Old City that has become a focus of contention between Jews and Muslims.
Flashpoint compound
The site, known as Noble Sanctuary to Muslims and Temple Mount to Jews (seen in picture above with Glick), is the third-most sacred site in Islam and the holiest in Judaism.
The US-born Glick, a rabbi and member of the Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, supports a campaign encouraging Jews to pray outside of specially designated areas, something which would provoke Muslim anger.
Jews normally pray at the Western Wall situated below the platform on which the al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock mosques stand.
Tensions on the eastern side of Jerusalem have been on the rise since before an Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip in summer. Palestinian anger has been fueled in the past weeks by Jewish settlers moving into largely Arab neighborhoods, and an increase in the number of visits to the sacred Old City compound by Orthodox Jews, including some politicians.
In light of the increasing unrest, police have raised their alert all over the country to level three - one level under that of the highest emergency.
tj/nm (Reuters, dpa)