ISRAEL TO RAZE PALESTINIAN ATTACKER’S AL QUDS HOME
Al Quds, 22 Muharram 1436/15 November 2014 (MINA) – Israeli police on Friday informed the family of a Palestinian youth who they had killed earlier following a vehicular attack on Israeli pedestrians that the family home in East Al Quds would be demolished on Sunday, according to eyewitnesses and the slain youth’s mother.
Israeli police had said the slain young man had run over Israeli settlers with his car in Jerusalem. Worldbulletin reported as quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
Israeli police raided the family’s home in Silwan neighborhood on Friday and informed the inhabitants that the structure would be demolished on Sunday, witnesses said.
“The family plans to appeal the demolition order in an Israeli court,” the mother said in a brief statement.
Israel’s security cabinet on Tuesday approved a series of new security measures following a spate of attacks targeting Jewish settlers.
Measures include the deployment extra troops in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem and the demolition of homes belonging to the perpetrators of attacks on Israelis.
Late last month, Israeli forces killed the young man after accusing him of killing an Israeli infant and an Ecuadorian woman, and injuring several others by running them over with his car in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah.
Tension has run high in East Jerusalem since late last month, when Israel closed the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound for several hours after an extremist rabbi was injured in a West Jerusalem drive-by shooting.
Unrest mounted further when Israeli forces killed a young Palestinian man – in a raid on his East Jerusalem home – who they suspected of having shot the rabbi.
Further aggravating the situation, a number of Israeli parliamentarians have forced their way into the mosque complex in recent weeks, drawing the ire of Muslim worshippers and official condemnation from Arab and Muslim countries.
For Muslims, Al-Aqsa represents the world’s third holiest site. Jews, for their part, refer to the area as the “Temple Mount,” claiming it was the site of two Jewish temples in ancient times.
Israel occupied East Jerusalem during the 1967 Middle East War. It later annexed the holy city in 1980, claiming it as the capital of the self-proclaimed Jewish state – a move never recognized by the international community.
In September 2000, a visit to Al-Aqsa by controversial Israeli politician Ariel Sharon triggered what later became known as the “Second Intifada,” a popular uprising against Israel’s decades-long occupation in which thousands of Palestinians were killed. (T/R03/R04)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
