Palestinian Incitement, Attacks, Glorification

(Originally posted on the Investigative Project on Terrorism website)

The recent spike in Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting Israelis throughout the country occur amid growing incitement to violence and glorification of terrorism emanating from Palestinian Authority and Fatah officials and institutions. Tuesday’s heinous attack on a Jerusalem synagogue was the “direct result” of that campaign, said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Within hours, Palestinian social media featured images glorifying the bloody slaughter of Jews while they worshipped.

“Jerusalem is thirsty, and this thirst will be quenched with blood.”

What follows is a list of recent attacks and examples of the incitement and glorification prominent in Palestinian social media outlets.

Most of the violence has centered in Jerusalem, as Palestinians continue to engage in rock throwing, Molotov cocktail attacks, and rioting in the capital and surrounding neighborhoods. The following section outlines major Palestinian terrorist attacks targeting Israelis in recent weeks.

• November 18, 2014: Two Palestinian terrorists stormed a Jerusalem synagogue armed with a meat cleaver and a gun during morning prayer, killing four Israeli rabbis and seriously injuring at least eight other worshippers. Three victims, Moshe Twersky, Aryeh Kupinsky, and Kalman Levine were dual American-Israeli citizens, and one, Avraham Goldberg, was a British-Israeli national, according to Israeli police.
• November 10, 2014: The IDF discovered an explosive device north of Jerusalem in the West Bank, between the Jewish communities of Psagot and Beit El.
• November 10, 2014: Palestinian terrorists stab Israelis in separate incidents, killing a young woman and a soldier. In the first incident, a Palestinian man stabbed an Israeli soldier, Almog Shilony, in Tel Aviv who later succumbed to his injuries. Police arrested the suspect, 18 year-old Nur al-Din Abu Khashiyeh, from Nablus, who was staying in Israel illegally. Hours later, another Palestinian terrorist attacked Israelis with a knife, killing a young woman, Dalia Lemkus, after stabbing her in the neck and injuring two others at a bus stop in the West Bank community of Alon Shvut. Hamas identified the Alon Shvut attacker as Maher Hamdi al-Ashalmoun from Hebron, who was released previously as a security prisoner. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist organization later claimed responsibility for the attack.
• November 10, 2014: An Arab-Israeli mob attacked a car with rocks in the town of Taibe and set it on fire. An Arab-Israeli, Majdi Baloum, rescued the victim by pulling him out of his car.
• November 6, 2014: Bullets struck an Israeli police cruiser driving north of Ramallah. There were no reported injures and security personnel searched for the shooter.
• November 5, 2014: A Palestinian terrorist rammed his car into a crowd of Israeli pedestrians in Jerusalem killing a Border Police officer, Jidan Assad, and injuring 14 other people. A 17-year-old student later died of his injuries. The terrorist, Ibrahim al-Acri, a Hamas operative, then crashed into another group of pedestrians and got out of his car and tried to attack more civilians with a metal bar. Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack, referring to al-Acri as a “martyr” who conducted “a heroic operation.”
• November 5, 2014: A Palestinian driver crashed into a group of IDF soldiersin the West Bank hours after a separate deadly vehicular attack in Jerusalem. One of the soldiers was wounded critically.
• October 29, 2014: A Palestinian man shot American-Israeli Rabbi Yehuda Glick in front of Jerusalem’s Menachem Begin Heritage Center. The suspect was killed the following morning after Israeli counter-terrorism forces surrounded his house and were fired upon. Israeli police discovered evidence that the suspected terrorist was involved in the Glick shooting.
• October 22, 2014: A suspected Hamas member crashed his car into a crowd of Israelis exiting the light rail station in Jerusalem, killing a three month-old American-Israeli girl, Chaya Zissel Braun, a woman from Ecuador, Karen Jemima Mosquera, and injuring eight others.