After the attack in Jerusalem, which left at least 7 dead and dozens injured this friday, this saturday morning a 13-year-old Palestinian boy shot two men in the Israeli capital. These attacks mark a dramatic escalation of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, despite calls for calm.
Today’s incident occurred in the Palestinian neighborhood of Silwanoutside the wall that demarcates the Old City, in East Jerusalem, an area annexed by Israel.
The Magen David Adom (MDA, Israeli equivalent of the Red Cross) emergency service said that the victims are two men, aged 47 and 23, who received “gunshot wounds to the upper body”. Police reported that it is a father and his son.
The attacker was “wounded and neutralized” by the security forces and was identified as a “13-year resident of East Jerusalem”, reported the security force.
Shortly before, police had announced 42 arrests related to Friday’s attack on a synagogue in which a 21-year-old Palestinian opened fire on people gathered outside a synagogue on Shabbat. The attack was during International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The attack, which has already been condemned by the UN, the United States, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Arab countries such as Jordan and the United Arab Emirates, came a few hours following an Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in response to rocket fire from that Palestinian enclave.
A crowd chanted “death to Arabs” during Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the attacked synagogue on Friday night. For their part, the Palestinians met following the attack in the aforementioned Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
extreme tension
The author of the attack once morest the synagogue was stopped by the police following a brief chase. Regarding the assailant, at the moment there are no indications that he was previously involved in militant activities or that he was a member of an established Palestinian armed group.
An attack in East Jerusalem left 7 dead and escalates tension in the Middle East
“Police have arrested 42 suspects for questioning, some of them members of the terrorist’s family,” the security body added.
During these hours, the officers will analyze “the connection between the arrested suspects and the terrorist who carried out the attack, as well as their knowledge or involvement.” Likewise, the police reported that it is in a state of “maximum alert”.
escalation of violence
It is worth noting that on Thursday nine Palestinians were killed in an Israeli raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern West Bank. This raid that Israel described as an “anti-terrorism” operation it was one of the deadliest actions by that country’s army in the occupied West Bank since the Second Intifada, the Palestinian uprising from 2000 to 2005.
Islamic Jihad and the Hamas organization, which rules the Gaza Strip, vowed reprisals and fired rockets into Israeli territory on Friday. Most of the shells were shot down by Israeli air defenses, but the army responded with shelling attacks on Gaza.
No injuries were reported on either side, but Palestinian armed groups they promised new actions.
request for peace
The United States announced on Thursday that its top diplomat, Antony Blinken, will travel to Israel and the Palestinian Territories next week to push for an “end to the cycle of violence.”
A State Department spokesman confirmed Friday that the visit is still underway and that Blinken will discuss “the steps to be taken to de-escalate tensions.”
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