Over the past week, a variety of knives were spotted in the possession of some students who walked through the security checkpoint at the Hebrew University Mt. Scopus campus, Walla reported. So far, in all these cases the students were cleared of suspicion of terrorism, but the university continued to reinforce its security system.
Since the current wave of terrorism began, Hebrew U guards have stopped and searched students—some of them Jews—who were carrying knives at the entrance to the Mount Scopus campus. At least in one case, police were called and the student was detained. But the university made it clear that in all cases the students were cleared of suspicion of terrorism.
With the start of the new academic year on Sunday, campus security was enhanced, especially in light of the fact that the Mt. Scopus campus is very literally a stone’s throw away from the predominantly Arab neighborhood of Issawiya, where disturbances have occurred daily. Students on campus was handed a pamphlet asking them “to carry identification documents and a student ID,” and to “get to the campus only with the necessary items for each the school day, in order to make the security check-in line move faster through the entrance gates.” Mount Scopus operates an extensive security system, since the terror attack by an east Jerusalem Hamas cell on July 31, 2002, who detonated an explosive device in the Frank Sinatra cafeteria at the Mount Scopus campus. The attack killed 9 people, including 5 American students, and injured about 100.
The university administration said in a statement: “Over the past week the security force of the Hebrew University campus on Mount Scopus has detected individual students with a pocketknife or a knife in their bag or pocket. In each of the cases security personnel at the Hebrew University and the Israel Police discovered no suspected intent to carry out terrorism. Maintaining the security of our University community is a paramount commitment of the administration. Our security force operates a system of external and spatial, overt and covert preventive measures to ensure the safety of all students on campus and in close proximity to it.”