Two Killed, 4 Wounded in Jerusalem Terrorist Shooting, Palestinians Celebrate

The attacker was a member of an outlawed group of Muslim civilian guards that regularly confronts police and Jews on the Temple Mount.

10.10.2016
News
Mark Tapson
  

Two people were killed and four wounded Sunday in a drive-by shooting attack and subsequent shootout in Jerusalem.

According to CNN, a gunman opened fire from his vehicle on civilians at a light-rail stop opposite the main police headquarters in Ammunition Hill. The terrorist, a 39-year-old Palestinian man from the east Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, fled in the direction of the eastern Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, with police giving chase on motorcycles.
 
When he saw the officers in pursuit, the attacker opened fire at them and the police shot back, killing him -- but not before he had killed two Israelis, Levana Malichi, 60, and policeman Yosef Kirma, 29.
 
 
Police described the shooting as a terrorist attack. Hamas praised the attack and urged more, but did not claim responsibility.
 
The gunman has not been named due to a court-issued gag order, but according to his family, he had been due to turn himself in to authorities on Sunday to serve a four-month prison sentence stemming from a 2013 conviction of assaulting a police officer in the Old City of Jerusalem.
 
The attacker was a member of Mourabitoun, an outlawed group of Muslim civilian guards that regularly confronts police and religious Jews on the al-Aqsa mosque compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount. The group describes itself as the protector of al-Aqsa from Israeli settlers.
 
Legal Insurrection reports that the official Palestinian Authority news agency honored the killer -- Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah declares day of mourning – for the murderer:

The Fatah movement, headed by that alleged moderate Mahmoud Abbas, has declared a strike and a day of mourning today for the terrorist who murdered two Jews, including a 60-year old grandmother.

The Palestinian Authority gave this day of mourning a stamp of approval by reporting it on the official Wafa website, saying that the terrorist was being mourned along with all of the other “martyrs of Jerusalem.”

The article in Wafa called the victims “soldiers.”

Arabs from the killer’s home district celebrated outside his home:

And as usual when Jews are killed in terrorist attacks, Palestinians passed around candy in celebration:

 

 

As Arutz Sheva reports, celebrations took place on Facebook as well, with Arabs spreading incitement on the Facebook page of the murdered police officer:

Just hours after Sergeant Major Yosef Kirma was murdered by an Arab terrorist in Israel’s capital Sunday morning, supporters of the murderer flocked to Kirma’s personal Facebook page – now a memorial page – to smear him and spread anti-Semitic incitement and propaganda.

Facebook users from Israel’s Arab sector bombarded Kirma’s memorial page with abusive taunts, anti-Semitic smears, and explicit incitement to violence and even threats of murder.

Some of the offensive posts included images of anti-Semitic caricatures, pictures of bloody knifes drawn, and vulgar language.

One Arab user even threatened a Jewish user, saying “You’re going to die soon.”

The U.S. State Department condemned the attack but did not go so far as to identify the perpetrator or celebrants, including Hamas.

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