[FOXNEWS] Two officers were killed in an attack by three Paleostinian assailants near a major Jerusalem holy site Friday, Israel’s police chief said.
Police Chief Roni Alscheich said the coppers died of wounds sustained in the attack. He said three Arab citizens of Israel opened fire on police near a gate of Jerusalem’s Old City.
The assailants were later killed in a shootout at a mosque near Luba Samri, police said.
Mickey Rosenfeld, another police front man, told Rooters that authorities are working to identify the attackers. Police said the attackers were armed with 2 Carl Gustav machine guns and a pistol.
Benjamin Netanyahu says the Moslem-administered sacred compound will be shut Friday for security reasons to make sure there are no weapons there. He says the status quo governing the site "will be preserved."
The holy compound is known to Jews as Temple Mount and to Moslems as Noble Sanctuary. It is the holiest site to Jews and the third holiest in Islam. Since September 2015, Paleostinian attackers have killed 43 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist.
In that time, Israeli forces have killed more than 254 Paleostinians, most of them said by Israel to be attackers.
Waqf official may have aided Israeli-Arab terrorists in Temple Mount attack — report
[IsraelTimes] Police checking if perpetrators had help from Jordanian group that administers site, Channel 10 says; officers raid Umm al-Fahm homes of shooters, break up mourners’ tent
Israel Police made a number of arrests in the wake of the deadly terror attack at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem on Friday morning, which claimed the lives of two Israeli coppers, and officers were on the hunt for additional suspects who may have helped the three Israeli-Arab perpetrators, police said.
Raids were also conducted on the homes of the terrorists, all from the northern Israeli city of Umm al-Fahm, and a mourners’ tent for the Death Eaters was broken up.
Channel 10 reported Friday that among those detained were at least one official from the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf, the Jordan-based organization that administers the Temple Mount, on suspicion that the shooters received help from inside. The channel said the official was seen on security footage behaving suspiciously.
Police also said they placed in durance vile
Youse'll never take me alive coppers!... [BANG!]... Ow!... I quit!
one person, a 22-year-old from the northern city on suspicion he was directly involved in the attack.
Police have not indicated what kind of assistance they believe the Waqf official provided, though Channel 10 said he may have helped the shooters stash the weapons used in the attack. A gag order was imposed on further aspects of the investigation relating to the Waqf.
Channel 10 noted the situation was complicated by the fact that the custodian group answers to Jordan, not Israel.
Channel 2 news said more vaguely that it was possible that the Death Eaters had received help from inside the compound, and that this was one of the reasons why police had ordered the closure of the area, for the first time in decades, will they carried out security checks.
The terrorists, Muhammad Ahmed Muhammad Jabarin, 29, Muhammad Hamad Abdel Latif Jabarin, 19 and Muhammad Ahmed Mafdal Jabarin, 19, used two Carlo-style submachine guns and a pistol to carry out the attack. One of them also tried to stab an officer after being apprehended.
It was not immediately known how the Death Eaters brought the weapons into the holy site. Moslem visitors to the Temple Mount complex go through a less rigorous security check than non-Moslem visitors who enter through the Mughrabi Bridge.
Jerusalem Police chief Yoram Halevi said Friday that officers were sweeping the Temple Mount, with the help of the Waqf, to look for further weapons.
After attack, Netanyahu said to order reopening of Temple Mt. from Sunday
[IsraelTimes] PM reportedly demanding improved security at holy site following Friday’s shootings, in which 3 Arab-Israelis killed two coppers.
Israel rejected a demand by Jordan Friday evening to immediately reopen the mount after it was shut for security reasons in the wake of the attack.
Head of Israel’s Arab party rejects armed struggle after Old City terror attack
[IsraelTimes] As 3 Arab-Israelis gun down two police officers, Ayman Odeh says Arab struggle is political, must not involve firearms.
| That's the joint Arab list put together by campaign consultants sent by President Obama and paid by the State Department. It will be interesting to see how long it holds together without outside help. |
Police officers murdered in Temple Mount terror attack laid to rest
[Ynet] Staff Sgt. Maj. Ha'il Satawi and Staff Sgt. Maj. Kamil Shnaan are both laid to rest in their home towns after being murdered in Friday's terror attack at the Temple Mount; Netanyahu: 'This is a sad day in which our brothers from the Druze community pay the heaviest price in our joint mission to defend the security of our country. I salute them and their heroism, and their memory will always be preserved in our hearts.'
Thousands of mourners attended the funerals of Staff Sgt. Maj. Ha'il Satawi, 30, and Staff Sgt. Maj. Kamil Shnaan, 22, of Maghar and Hurfeish, respectively, who were both murdered in a terrorist attack Friday morning at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Satawi is survived by his three-week-old son, his wife, parents and three brothers.
Numerous government officials attended both funerals, including Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh, Minister of Public Security Gilad Erdan, Labor Party Chairman Avi Gabbay, Opposition Chairman Yitzhak Herzog, Minister of Education Naftali Bennett and MK Amir Peretz.
Police Commissioner Roni Alsheikh spoke at Satawi's funeral, saying, "Today you shouldn't have been at the Temple Mount, but you switched with a friend who needed help. That is who you were, ready to volunteer for any mission."
Alsheikh continued, saying, "As usual, you were the first to run to the source of the shooting, and unfortunately for us, you found your death with your head held high, you and Kamil. Ha'il, your friends cannot digest the fact that you are not among the living anymore.
"More and more security missions are falling to the police; police who serve on the frontline on a daily basis. You served in the most sensitive place in the world, in order to preserve freedom of worship. There, vile people decided to thwart this right. We will not allow it."
Through tears, Kamil's father, former MK Shachiv Shnaan, said, "I am proud of my son, who is here wrapped in the flag of the country. I saw the reports about the attack and the headlines, and I did not imagine that I was the father of one of the fallen.
"He did not answer his phone and I realized that something had happened. In the name of the people of Israel, I wish these will be the last of the fallen. My heart is also with the Satawi family and I wish a speedy recovery to our brothers, the Kablan family. Enough of the crying and tears. It is my prayer that the rifle is replaced with the flower." |
In a speech to mark two years since the end of the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday declared that Israel's defense minister and army chief's "failures" in the past meant they did not scare his Lebanese militant organization today. 
Former defense minister 
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said on Monday he assumed full responsibility for failures highlighted in a report last week by a government-appointed commission into the 2006 Lebanon war. "The Winograd Commission said what it had to say, and what it said was very harsh. I bear full responsibility for all the failures -- I never tried to shirk that," Olmert told an extraordinary session of parliament that convened to discuss the report. "I will use this responsibility to fix mistakes, and this is what I have been doing since the day after the war ended," he said.