Holy site tensions
As couple mourned, Israel sends in troops, blames Abbas
An Israeli policeman fights with a Palestinian protester Friday in Jerusalem’s Old City. The slayings Thursday of a Jewish settler couple by suspected Palestinian militants added to tensions between Israelis and Palestinians over a holy site in Jerusalem.
JERUSALEM — Israel’s military deployed hundreds of troops in the West Bank on Friday, a day after a driveby shooting by suspected Palestinian gunmen killed a Jewish settler couple driving home with their children.
The attack took place late Thursday when gunmen opened fire on a vehicle traveling near the Palestinian village of Beit Furik. The shots killed Eitam and Naama Henkin, residents of the Jewish West Bank settlement of Neria. Their four children, including a 4-month-old, were in the back seat of the car but were unharmed.
On Friday, Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon visited the site, pledging to catch the perpetrators and, like other Israeli politicians, blaming Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for inciting such violence.
Thousands attended the parents’ funeral Friday in Jerusalem, including Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
“We cannot stand silently when the hands of murderers steal a loving mother and father away from their children,” Rivlin said in a eulogy. “We are facing a brutal terrorist onslaught.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu demanded that Abbas and his government explicitly condemn the slaying of the couple.
Meeting Secretary of State John Kerry in New York on Friday, Netanyahu said he appreciated U.S. condemnation of Thursday’s attack and noted that some Palestinians had praised the killings. He said the only way to deal with such events is to fight terrorism, and he called on the international community to press Abbas and the Palestinian Authority to act.
“I have to say I have yet to hear any condemnation from President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority,” Netanyahu told Kerry. “Worse, I heard senior officials from his Fatah movement say ‘This is the way to go.’ No, it’s not the way to go. The way to go … is to fight terrorism and to make sure that terrorism reaps no rewards.”
Netanyahu and Kerry noted the mass shooting at a college in Oregon on Thursday that left nine people and the gunman dead. They said Israel and the U.S. were united in grief.
“We’re sharing with you the grief that Israel feels today,” Kerry said. “I hope we can share also the efforts going forward to reduce and maybe ultimately one day eliminate” these “terrible losses” for the families.
The attack comes on the heels of a series of Palestinian rock and firebomb attacks that have prompted Israel to vow to quash such threats.
It also followed a hard-line speech at the United Nations by Abbas, the last of several that Israeli leaders have condemned as incitement. Abbas has said that Israelis desecrate a Jerusalem holy site with their “dirty feet” and that Israel was committed to the “ethnic cleansing” of his people.
Speaking before the U.N. General Assembly, Abbas said Israel had repeatedly violated its commitments, most notably by expanding settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, on lands the Palestinians seek for a future state, and accused Israel of waging “a new war of genocide … against the Palestinian people.”
“A people whose leader encourages murder will never have a state, and this must be stated clearly,” said Cabinet minister Naftali Bennett, head of the pro-settler Jewish Home party.
Settler leaders said they planned to stage a protest in front of Netanyahu’s office to demand tougher action to defend the settlers from militants.
Gaza’s Islamic militant Hamas rulers welcomed Thursday’s attack but stopped short of claiming responsibility for it. Abbas’ Palestinian Authority did not comment on the attack.
Tensions have flared between Israelis and Palestinians over the Jerusalem site known to Jews as the Temple Mount, home to the biblical Temples, and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, site of the Al-Aqsa mosque and the spot from where the Prophet Muhammad is said to have ascended to heaven.