San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
BOY, 13, SHOOTS AND INJURES 2 ISRAELIS IN JERUSALEM
Attack comes day after mass shooting near synagogue killed seven
Violence continued Saturday in Jerusalem as an attacker, identified by police as a 13-year-old boy, shot and injured two Israelis near a settlement in east Jerusalem the morning after a Palestinian assailant killed seven people outside a synagogue elsewhere in the city.
Both victims on Saturday were taken to a hospital and were described by medics as being in serious but not critical condition. The teenage assailant was shot and injured by two passersby, according to a police statement.
The attack underscored the fragility of the situation in Israel and the occupied territories, which has left at least 20 Israelis and Palestinians dead in less than a week and has prompted many on either side of the conflict to fear a possible greater conflagration.
The combination of several overlapping dynamics — a new hardright Israeli government that has promised to take a stronger stance against Palestinians, rising anger and militancy from a new generation of Palestinians, an escalating Israeli military campaign in Palestinian areas, and the Palestinian leadership’s decision this past week to sever security coordination with Israeli counterparts — threatens to accelerate a cycle of violence and undermine efforts to calm tensions.
On Saturday night, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his government would respond calmly to the escalation in violence and warned civilians against vigilantism.
But Netanyahu also promised strong actions against the perpetrators of the recent attacks and their families, pledging to seal and demolish their homes and to cancel their national insurance payouts. He also said the government would make it easier and faster for Israelis to attain gun licenses, allowing more civilians to carry weapons.
An Israeli official also said that the Cabinet would discuss the possibility of deporting assailants and their families.
The Palestinian Authority, the semi-autonomous body that administers parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, released a statement blaming the Israeli government for the tensions and promising to uphold a decision it made this past week to halt coordination with Israeli security officials. And Hamas, the militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, warned that the region was “heading for an unprecedented escalation.”
The attack Saturday morning occurred in Silwan, a mainly Palestinian district of east Jerusalem, a few hundred yards south of some of the holiest sites in the Old City.
The 13-year-old attacker was filmed firing on a group of Jewish Israelis as they walked through the area, hitting a father and his adult son. Palestinian media reported that the assailant also lived in Silwan and that his relatives were subsequently arrested by police. The attack came hours before mourners were set to hold funerals for the seven people killed Friday night outside a synagogue.
Elsewhere in east Jerusalem on Saturday, police said they had arrested 42 people connected to the 21year-old Palestinian assailant in the attack Friday night. Police said they had increased their presence in the streets of Jerusalem, while the Israeli Defense Ministry said it was scaling up efforts to protect Israeli settlements and roads in the West Bank.