Attack derails Jerusalem’s uneasy quiet
[Jerusalem] – A Palestinian drove his car into a group of soldiers at a junction in the West Bank, slightly wounding four of them, including a Lieutenant Colonel. The attacker was shot and seriously wounded.
It came the day after a 16-year-old Palestinian stabbed and killed an Israeli soldier at a gas station in the West Bank. The 18-year-old soldier, Ziv Mizrachi, was the second killed in his family. His uncle, who worked as a security guard at a café in Jerusalem, was killed in 2003 when he tried to stop a suicide bomber from entering a Jerusalem café. Eight people were killed in that attack.
Jerusalem was also the focus of a second attack Monday, when two Palestinian teenage girls, armed with scissors, attacked pedestrians at the city’s iconic outdoor fruit and vegetable market bringing activity in the area, and the city’s tramline, to a temporary standstill.
The teenagers attacked an elderly man, believing him to be Jewish, wounding him. The man was a Palestinian from Bethlehem. An Israeli security guard was slightly injured by a bullet fired by Israeli police officers at the attackers. One of the young women was killed, and the other seriously wounded.
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It was the third attack in Jerusalem since the start of November, a major decrease from the month before. A wave of stabbings in the city during October was curbed by the deployment of increased numbers of police officers and army personnel. This month, the focus of attacks moved to the West Bank, although there were several attacks in cities inside Israel.
It was thanks to the heavy police presence in the city that casualties from the attack in the market were so low, Mickey Rosenfeld, the spokesperson for the Israeli Police Force, told The Media Line. “Police units that were literally at the scene shot both the female terrorists. One was injured seriously, the second one was shot and killed,” Rosenfeld said.
“This is one of the first attacks in Jerusalem in a couple of weeks – the first successful I should say, a lot of them have been neutralized before they can even make it,” Yossi Franklin, deputy commander of the Jerusalem branch of Zaka, told The Media Line.
Zaka is a voluntary organization, recognized by the Israeli government, which assists ambulance crews and police forces with identifying and caring for bodies following disasters and attacks.
During the Second Intifada, from 2000 to 2005, the market in Jerusalem was frequently targeted by suicide bombers leading to many Jerusalemites avoiding the area at the time. After this attack, several shoppers said they would not let the attack derail their plans to continue shopping in the market.
“I heard about it and carried on to the market, I had to do my shopping,” Zehava, a female shopper told The Media Line. “They said they’d already caught them and killed them so there was nothing to be afraid of.”
Another shopper, Mira, said that the natural fruit and vegetable juices from the market were too important to give up on and despite having heard about the attack she came anyway. “We’re not going to give up on the market — it’s part of our life,” she told The Media Line, after buying her juice. “We won’t ever let them win over us. Let them be afraid of us – not us of them,” she concluded.
But not everybody was so defiant.
“I’m constantly afraid. You think only (Jews) are afraid? We’re also scared,” Mahmoud, an Arab vegetable seller from the Silwan neighborhood, told The Media Line. Working with vegetables, Mahmoud said he was constantly nervous to touch his knives, the tools of his trade, in case someone suspected him of violent intensions. “Even my regular clients, when I reach to return their change, they tremble,” the greengrocer who has worked in the market for fourteen years said.
“This has to end, on both sides, it affects Arabs and Jews,” Mahmoud said, complaining that he noticed shoppers looking at him to judge his ethnicity before they spoke to him recently. To add to his worries, Mahmoud explained he was concerned that an attack near the market would hurt businesses. “A week ago it was better—one terror attack and we’re done.”