Violent riots took place overnight Thursday in eastern Jerusalem, with other neighborhoods joining the rioters, including Wadi al-Joz, Ras al-Amud, Sur Bahar, Al-Issawiya, Jabal Mukabar, Kfar Hashiloach (Silwan), the Shuafat refugee camp, Beit Hanina, Hizmah, A-Tur, Shimon HaTzadik (Sheikh Jarrah), and the Old City.
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Due to the escalation, four Border Guard reserve companies were placed on call, and the decision on whether to order them in will be made this morning after a situation assessment by Police Commissioner Kobi Shabtai.
A lynching attempt was made in Beit Hanina when an Arab mob threw stones at a Jewish family with three children, including a baby, in their car, but the family managed to escape. Yaakov, a resident of Jerusalem, whose family’s car was stoned by the Arab rioters, told Reshet Bet radio Thursday morning: “It was a great miracle––as soon as they realized that we were Jews, someone pointed a laser beam at us and everyone stormed at us and started throwing stones.”
Yaakov entered the Beit Hanina neighborhood with his car and immediately saw that “the road was closed with rafts and pallets. As soon as I realized where we had entered, I turned the steering wheel to the right and started maneuvering there among the vehicles, we couldn’t believe we were still there. The entire car was full of glass. They threw a stone that we only saw later, and it fell at our boy’s feet, miraculously nothing happened there. The window next to our girl was smashed and the rioters tried to punch her. She pulled her head back in and we continued to move forward.”
ההתפרעויות במזרח ירושלים: רכב של משפחה יהודית נרגם באבנים בצומת בית חנינה-נווה יעקב בעיר. בא-טור יודו גם כן אבנים לעבר כלי רכב @VeredPelman pic.twitter.com/F1qKGAEdrQ
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) October 12, 2022
Police arrested two suspects in connection to the lynching attempt. So far, only five suspects altogether have been detained.
All over the eastern part of the city, fireworks and Molotov cocktails were thrown at homes and passing cars, trash cans were set on fire, and members of the security forces were attacked. Stones were also thrown at Jews from the roofs of their houses. The extent of the neighborhoods and the general mobilization in the entire eastern part of the city was reminiscent of the events of May 2021 before the Netanyahu government launched Operation Guardians of the Wall to quell the Arab violence.
In Shimon HaTzadik, masked men threw stones at a mosque.
In Kfar Hashiloach, an Arab threw Molotov cocktails at police forces and a patrol car. The officers returned fire and there were no Israeli casualties.
During the night, the IDF secured dozens of Jewish worshipers who entered Joseph’s Tomb in Shechem. Arab gunmen opened fire on the worshipers who were entering the tomb, but no casualties were reported. The head of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, said: “We arrive at Joseph’s tomb tonight in the middle of Sukkot, on a symbolic and special date––the ushpiz Joseph––and enter the compound as we do every year.”
According to the Lurianic Kabbalah, each night of Sukkot, we invite one of seven exalted guests into our sukkah (ushpizin is Aramaic for guests, singular=ushpiz), who are the seven shepherds of Israel: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph and David, each correlating with one of the seven lower Sephirot. Each of the ushpizin has a unique lesson to teach us that parallels the spiritual focus of the day on which they visit, based on the Sephirah associated with him.
